Discussion:Year of divorce-HOH and itemized deduction split

Facts: Divorce final 8/31. (H)usband and (W)ife lived together until 8/31. Following divorce H gets kids every Tuesday and every other weekend. W willing to give up HOH status to H in divorce year. Can H file HOH.

How much discretion is there in dividing the itemized deductions? If H was the only one working in the family and he paid mortgage, etc. payments, and W is OK with giving up 1/2 the deductions up unitl the divorce date, can H claim them all?

Back to the questions.

Wife has custody post divorce and since H was the only worker in the family he paid all the bills. Since the divorce occured late in the tax year W will not have a tax liability and she is willing to allow H to claim 100% of the deductions up till the divorce date since he paid them all from his paycheck. I would like to deduct 100% of the itemized deductions paid until 8/31 on his return.

In determining if H had custody of kids > 50% of the year, can I say yes because they did live with him from 1/1 - 8/31 while married? Again, since W has no tax liability she is OK with this and she will file single in divorce year.

It appears to me that W is the custodial parent as per §152(e)(4) as she was the parent having custody for the greater portion of the calendar year. Does W need to file a Form 8332 to release the exemption for the children? I'm inclined to go this way but others may have a different take or pehaps I'm missing something.

"(i) a qualifying child of the individual (as defined in section 152(c), determined without regard to section 152(e)..."

I had understood that "determined without regard to section 152(e) (the divorced part) meant for HOH in section 2(b) to be applicable, if 152(e) were germane then it would disqualify the individual for HOH under section 2(b). That is to say, it negates the non-custodial for HOH in the year of divorce as well.

So funny how so many basic areas can become complicated.

Aside: I saw my father's tax return for my year of birth. Either he did not know what he was doing, or rules in those ancient times had you prorate the exemption by the number of months the exemption was an exemption!

But I did not catch the fact that the wife was not working. So where does that leave us? Should not matter regarding dependent since under the "new" rules taxpayer does not have to provide over 1/2 support - just that child cannot pay over 1/2 support.

If wife did not work after husband left than perhaps she did not pay over 1/2 the housing which would disqualify her from HOH status.

This is all off the top of my head, I will do more research on Monday when I get back to the office. It is amazing how complicated the "basics" can be!

Assuming the wife has income attributable to her from Sept. through Dec. and provides more than half of the cost to maintain a household for the child, she would qualify for HOH status. If she did not meet the aforementioned requirements, then HOH is down the drain for this year.