Hi guys. My parents have both been filing as head of household for years now I think. They do not meet the criteria as they are both married and live in the same house. My mother does not want to amend her taxes because she wants a bigger refund check, and so she did this on purpose. She refuses to talk to me about, and threatened to beat me if I dare do anything with IRS because she does not want to pay the money back.
My parents are both immigrants, and for some reason believe that they can get away with this as they tend to only think short term and not long term. The back pay that they’ll owe on their taxes will be large She already has large me
Ducal debt and credit card debt that she made me get a part time job to help her pay.
Medical debt that she made me get a part time job to help her pay. My older sister is in college and got along fine but only because the IRS flagged my mom’s tax form that my sister used to apply to college to. She just did her fafsa and I’m waiting to see if it gets flagged. If it does, then my mother has no chance but to amend her taxes because she sure isn’t contributing a dime to our colleges.
We are not low income but my parents believe they are. They make 95k a year but send over 30k back to our home country each year. My mother will not be divorcing my dad anytime soon and even plans on compromising her health for another child.
I have very strong academics, 1590 SAT, 36 ACT, multiple leadership positions, and community impact at my title 1 school. I feel frustrated as I spent sleepless nights and my youth into getting into a good college and it’s ruined because of them. Is there anything I can do other than merit scholarships(already applying to) in hopes of going out of state? I do not wish to be around my parents anymore.
Your parents’ tax filing decisions are not something you can fix on your own and you shouldn’t put yourself at risk by confronting them if they’ve threatened you. For financial aid, the best thing you can do is contact your college’s financial aid office, explain your situation honestl and ask what documentation they need. They have handled difficult family situations before and can tell you what your options are. I hope things work out for you.
What FAFSA did your sister or mom do? The 2025-2026 academic year has ended…so that FAFSA really wouldn’t be able to be used any longer, I don’t believe. The FAFSA for the 2026-2027 academic year is ok…but what does your sister hope to gain?
If you are applying for the 2027-2028 academic year, that FAFSA won’t be available until October 1 (for anyone going to college that academic year).
And lastly…
@Amesemi_Deng if this is your real name, I would urge you to change it asap. Here is how:
When will you be starting college? If 2027, then you need to start seriously looking at colleges where you can get great merit aid from the colleges.
If you are accepted for 2026 start, and cannot reconcile this financial aid situation, you might want to consider taking a gap year, and using that time to craft a college list where you would get significant merit aid…and/or hope that this tax situation gets straightened out.
Merit aid doesn’t usually require any financial aid forms be completed, and is not dependent on income. Sounds like this is where you need to be.
Don’t discount your instate options…if they are the ones that are most affordable to you. Look at your end goal…which is to get your bachelors degree.
Not sure if some type of legal emancipation is possible. You’d have to prove independence & financial stability. One concern is that of dependent student status versus independent student status for the FAFSA. For most people, you still need to report parent financial information until you turn age 24 (when you might be heading to grad school, med school, law school, etc.) It wouldn’t matter if you were to move out and live with other people on the other side of the country! Not sure if there is anything you could do between age 18-23. Maybe get legally married? I’m no legal expert!
I’ve worked with some families who have done this, there are actually tax advising companies who advise married parents to both file taxes as head of household. To be clear and blunt, this is tax fraud.
Because your parents are married but both filed as head of household, they can not use FAFSA DRT. It sounds like they have filed FAFSA before for your sister? I assume they entered all of their financial information manually into FAFSA?
Colleges should flag FAFSA filings where parents are married but filed taxes as head of household and ask for all tax documents. And it sounds like the IRS flagged the filing too, is that correct?
I strongly encourage your parents to square up their taxes so you can maximize your chances of federal and institutional financial aid. They should square up their taxes from a legal perspective too. You said your parents are immigrants…are they citizens or do they have green cards?
My father is a citizen and my mother has a green card. They don’t understand a single thing about America education system, and are both illiterate. The tax forms my sister used was 2023, the audited one my mother had to fix. My sister doesn’t care right now because it only affects me but probably will once her financial aid gets halted.
This has to be done before a student is 18 years old…and there needs to be a good reason. I’m not sure the parent filing their taxes incorrectly would be a reason.
It is not ruined. Your great results from high school are going to help you a lot. You have done very well. Whatever your parents have done is something that they are going to need to deal with when the IRS catches up (“when”, not “if”). Perhaps the best thing about your entire post is that you have put yourself into a situation where you should be able to get very good merit based aid at some good universities.
First, you cannot fix the problems that your parents are creating. Do not try to fix this. Just try to stay away from it. The IRS is not going to come after you personally.
Secondly, look for schools with affordability as your primary goal. There are a LOT of very good universities in the US. They are going to range enormously in terms of the total cost of attendance. You will most likely need to attend a school where your stats put you near the top of incoming students and that will give you very good merit aid. Employers and graduate programs have figured out that very strong university graduates come from a huge range of undergraduate schools, and that some very excellent students need to attend the most affordable school that they can find. As such many companies are hiring some excellent graduates from lower ranked schools simply because companies have figured out that sometimes that is where the excellent graduates come from. I have worked alongside some of them, and my daughter who is in a fully funded PhD program is studying (or in her case mostly doing lab research) alongside some more of them.
The tax situation must be fixed in order for the student to receive financial aid. I dealt with this often when working in an urban college … the tax prep companies in the city unfortunately steered people incorrectly. Financial aid people don’t care whether your parents filed their taxes correctly, but they are required by regulations to withhold federal financial aid from any student who has unresolved conflicting information.
In this case, two people who are married to each other and who both file as Head of Household have filed their taxes incorrectly. This is considered conflicting information which must be resolved in order for a student to receive federal aid. This will be obvious, because the parents are required to have their taxes directly transferred from the IRS. When a married couple files using anything other than Married Filing Jointly, each parent will be required to provide the college with their own tax transcript from the IRS. If the parents’ status was Married Filing Separately, there is no issue. But if the transcripts both show a status of Head of Household, the school is not allowed to provide the student with any federal aid.
The parents can amend their return so that one remains Head of Household and the other is Married Filing Separately, or they can amend to Married Filing Jointly. They’ll be required to provide tax transcripts from the IRS that show the amended return. They can also choose not to change anything, but the student will not receive any federal aid.
Financial aid folks aren’t thrilled to have to do this enforcement, but they don’t have a choice.
Yes when she was applying for college she used the 2023 tax form that floated her through her freshman year. Now it’s her sophomore year and she’s using the 2024 tax form that has the double HOH mistake
My parents will not be contributing a dime for school, and they have been saying so since 3rd grade. When I used a net price calculator for most of the schools I wanted to go to, it was less than 1k a year that I could afford if I got external scholarships, Pell grant, and work study.
My understanding is that you need some number of posts on the site before you can personal message another member. However, @Mwfan1921 could pm you, and once you get the pm you will be able to respond to it privately.
To file as HOH if married, you have to file as married filing separately, so did your parents file 2 tax returns? Here are the requirements:
Yes, you can be legally married and file as Head of Household (HOH), but you must file a separate tax return (essentially as Married Filing Separately) and meet strict [IRS Qualifying Criteria
To claim HOH while married, you must meet all of these specific conditions:
Separate Returns: You must file a separate tax return from your spouse.
Lived Apart: Your spouse must not have lived in your home at any time during the last six months of the tax year.
Household Costs: You paid more than half the cost of keeping up your home for the year.
Dependent: Your home was the main home of a qualifying child or dependent for more than half the year
I don’t think it is possible to file a joint tax return and have HOH show up as a choice on the 1040.
Have you seen the tax form(s)? Maybe there is a misunderstanding between what your mother is telling you and how it was actually filed? It is possible that your parents each filed a return and each claimed different dependents (you, your sister (may be too old to be a qualifying child), a younger sibling) to qualify as HOH and the IRS system may not have caught it (that they lived together) but I don’t think there is a way for them to file together and claim ‘HOH.’ There are people who are separated, live at the same address (for financial reasons) and each file as HOH (with different children on the 1040) and that isn’t wrong. My (now) BIL did live at the same address as his ex wife when they were separated/newly divorced (he lived in the basement) but they both couldn’t claim the same child to qualify as HOH.
It’s still wrong if they each filed as HOH and they aren’t separated or divorced, but I don’t think YOU can fix that.
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