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Fulfilling Individual Income Tax Filing Obligations in the United States – Part 1

30 mars 2026 par
Patrik Hancz, JD

Generally, the filing status is based on the marital status on the last day of the year. You can choose:

  1. Single if you’re unmarried, divorced or legally separated.
  2. Married filing jointly if you’re married or if your spouse passed away during the year.
  3. Married filing separately if you’re married and don’t want to file jointly or find that filing separately lowers your tax. Most couples save money by filing jointly.
  4. Head of household if you’re single and you paid more than half of your living expenses for yourself and a qualifying dependent.
  5. Qualifying surviving spouse if your spouse died during the past 2 years and you have a dependent child.

Today we will look at the detailed rules and conditions of three filing types: married filing jointly, married filing separately and qualifying surviving spouse.

The available tax benefits and applicable tax rates depend on the chosen filing status, which we will also address later.

Married Filing Jointly

Taxpayers may choose this form if they are considered married for the entire tax year and both agree to file jointly. In this return, they report their combined income and deductible expenses. The return may be filed even if one of the spouses has no income or deductions.

Two individuals are considered married for the entire tax year if, on the last day of the tax year, they:

  • are married and live together,
  • are married but live apart and there is no valid decree of divorce or separate maintenance agreement, or
  • are divorced, but the divorce decree has not yet become final.
Separate Maintenance: financial support provided by one spouse to the other when the couple is legally separated but still married. Its purpose is to help the dependent spouse achieve financial independence.

A joint return may not be filed if either spouse was, at any time during the tax year, a nonresident alien (hereinafter: NRA), unless the U.S. citizen spouse and the NRA spouse jointly elect and agree to be taxed on their worldwide income.

In general, if one spouse files a separate return, the other must also file separately. There is one exception:

If one spouse qualifies as a head of household (hereinafter: HOH) during the marriage, one spouse may file separately while the other files as HOH.

This concept will be explained in more detail in the next article.

Married Filing Separately

In this case, each spouse separately reports their own income, deductions, and credits. The spouse who uses their own funds to pay expenses related to jointly owned property is entitled to the deduction connected to those payments.

Qualifying Surviving Spouse

We now arrive at the third type of return. This type is available for two years following the death of a spouse and may be chosen if:

  • the surviving spouse does not remarry during the tax year,
  • the surviving spouse (together with the deceased spouse) was eligible to file a Married Filing Joint Return for the year in which the spouse died, and
  • the surviving spouse maintained the household during the tax year.
Household maintenance in this case means that the spouse provided at least 50% of the household’s total costs.

Furthermore:

  • the household must have been the main home of one qualifying dependent of the surviving spouse, and
  • the dependent must be the taxpayer’s son, daughter, stepson, stepdaughter, or adopted child. A foster child is not included.

In the next article, we will discuss in detail the concepts and rules of head of household and qualifying person, as they are of key importance for determining eligibility.

The information provided in this article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute tax or legal advice.

Sources


U.S. Tax Residency in Practice: Risks for Cross-Border Wealth Planning Structures