Can parent file head of household with a married child living with them for 9 months.

[shf1957]

Single mother with one daughter.  Daughter got married on July 5th, but husband is in the service so the daughter remained living with her mom until the end of September and her husband was finally stationed in one area.   Can the mother claim the child under head of household  but possibly not take the exemption?   If so can the daughter file jointly with her husband? or should he file married filing separately?  The part confusing me is that the child was not married for the first 6 months and 4 days, and also remained under the mom's care until the end of September.

[gma]

I am going to take a stab at this.  Not be filing a joint return unless they’re only filing to claim a refund of taxes withheld. Also, there would be no tax liability for either she or her spouse if filing separate returns I kind of think you can get the best of both worlds.  But not completely sure. Her gross income must be less than $4,300 for the year.  Hope this helps.

[qbteachmt]

The IRS has interactive tax assistants (wizard) including Filing Status and Dependency.

Here is an IRS link, with topics and bookmark links:

https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/get-ready-for-taxes-bookmark-irsgov-resources-and-online-tools-to-use-b...