D-Jam Posted February 1, 2009 Posted February 1, 2009 OK...had a friend ask me the other day about how she should file her taxes for last year. She got divorced in June. She's has a W2 for her own work, but she said til the end of June her work was taking taxes off as if she were married, then July on as if she were single. I did not know they do that. So she's wondering how she should file. Should she just do her W2 filing as single and hope for the best? Or get her ex husband's W2 and file something for the 6 months they were still married?
Crestfallen_KH Posted February 1, 2009 Posted February 1, 2009 According to the IRS, whatever status you were on December 31st, 2008 is how you should file; therefore, she needs to file "single." My divorce was finalized December 22nd, 2007. Despite the fact that I was married the great majority of the year, I filed single because that's what I was on December 31st.
Iamagreatdad Posted February 2, 2009 Posted February 2, 2009 If she has children, she should review filing as a Head of Household, which is basically pretty close to married benefits.
Trimmer Posted February 2, 2009 Posted February 2, 2009 This is not intended in a mean way, but I'm thinking that if she's not savvy enough to be able to determine how her divorce date factors into her filing status, she should probably get some outside help filing her taxes, especially when it comes to considerations of filing as Head of Household, claiming the kids as dependents/deductions, etc. And D-Jam, that's a cool avatar graphic - it reminds me of a highly stylized tape measure...
NYCmitch25 Posted February 2, 2009 Posted February 2, 2009 This is not intended in a mean way, but I'm thinking that if she's not savvy enough to be able to determine how her divorce date factors into her filing status, she should probably get some outside help filing her taxes, especially when it comes to considerations of filing as Head of Household, claiming the kids as dependents/deductions, etc. And D-Jam, that's a cool avatar graphic - it reminds me of a highly stylized tape measure... I second that -- the person who started this thread and the woman who was written about in it are both tools .. :=P
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