If you have a divorce pending at the end of the year, The Accounting Lab can project the differences in a final tax bill based on filing a joint return or filing as married filing separately. If you divorced during the year, head of household filing status, with its increased standard deduction, is appropriate if you have dependents living at home for more than half of the year and you paid more than half of the upkeep of the home.
On the other hand, if a spouse died during 2022, you can still use “married filing jointly” as the filing status. While the year of death is the last year for which a joint return can be filed with a deceased spouse, you may be eligible to use the head-of-household filing status for the following year, or the year after that, if you are considered a “surviving spouse.” A surviving spouse is one (1) whose spouse died during either of the two tax years immediately preceding the tax year; and (2) who maintains as a home a household which constitutes for the tax year the principal place of abode (as a member of such household) of a dependent who is a son, stepson, daughter, or stepdaughter of the taxpayer, and with respect to whom you are entitled to a dependency exemption deduction for the years in which such exemption deductions are available. Even if you do not qualify as a surviving spouse, you may nevertheless qualify as a head of household, if the applicable requirements are met.