A friend asked me to look at a notice they received in response to a self prepared return. Aside from the issue below, the return was dead on for both Fed and State, which was impressive.
Their spouse passed in 2021 and they claimed surviving spouse status for 2022, based on using the IRS "whats my filing status" tool on their website. They have a child who did not provide over 1/2 of their support, lived with him for all 12 months, and was a full time student. The child turned 25 before the end of 2022.
The tool, once all this information was input, informed him that he was entitled to file as a surviving spouse. The notice disagreed, and changed the status to single. He was obviously confused as how this could be.
Looking into this, surviving status requires that there be a child who can be claimed as a dependent. CCH provides a reference to the definition of dependent, as either a qualifying child, or an other qualifying relative. To be a qualifying child, they must be less than 24 if a student. Accordingly, the child is not a qualifying child who can be claimed as a dependent due to age. That results in surviving spouse not being allowed, it appears.
Given that the filing status tool had all this information and yielded an incorrect result, I am questioning my conclusion.
Am I correct and this is a case of the IRS tool not giving an accurate answer, or did I misunderstand something along the way?
If I read it right, we plan to file an amendment to claim head of household as the child would be a qualifying person for that status.