@TaxGuyBill  I am going to disagree.  If there are multiple parents who can claim a child because the child lives with both parents they can choose who claims the child.  That does not remove the ability for that child to be a qualifying child for Head of Household for the other parent.

If parents do not live together and mom has custody of the child she can sign the dependency over to the non custodial parent. She can still claim Head of Household for that child.

If I am wrong I want to correct my thinking (we rarely have this situation in our practice) so I am not saying I am right I am just trying to assure both of us are on the same page.  No where in the HOH instructions in The Tax Book does it say that the child has to be claimed as a dependent to be a qualifying child for HOH.

In the filing status chart it says "Was taxpayer unmarried (Y or N)" in this case yes.

"Does the taxpayer pay over half the cost of keeping up his home dependent home" in this case yes.

Then reading the instructions for HOH on pages 3-10 and 3-11 no where does it say that they have to be claimed as a dependent.  Thus, in Pro Series, for Head of Household it has a place to enter in the information for the qualifying child.

Dusty