Identification

• To file your taxes as head of household, you must be unmarried, and you must have paid more than 50 percent of the cost to keep a home during the tax year. In addition, a qualifying person must have lived in the home for more than half the tax year.
  
  

Qualifying Person

• A qualifying person may be your unmarried child or grandchild who lived with you for more than half the year. Your married child, if you claim him as an exemption, also qualifies. Likewise, if you claim an exemption for your father or mother, he or she is a qualifying person. Other relatives may qualify if they live with you and meet certain tests.
  
  

Considerations

• A child may be a qualifying person for only one taxpayer per tax year. Your qualifying parent may live in another home, which can be his own home or a home for the elderly, such as a rest home.