OK if mom is on Ohio Passport, aka Medicaid, and the daughter or anybody else attempts to claim her as a dependent, passport will stop. When you apply for Medicaid, you declare you have no other support, that you are not someone's dependent.
Angel, to claim someone as a dependent, the person must be a US citizen, US resident alien, US national or resident of Canada or Mexico. And the IRS has a gross income limit before one can claim a parent as a Dependent. Your Mom will need an Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN). This is different than a Social Security number.
Head of household also requires that you are single and paid more than half of your total living expenses. If those are true and if your mother qualifies as your dependent, then filing single head of household can be a good way to go. If your mother is on SS and gets a small check, then there's a good chance you will qualify. Do you pay for most of the upkeep of the house now? I noticed that you wrote it was her house.
In order to claim head of household, you have to be able to claim your mother as a dependent. In order to claim your mother as a dependent, you have to provide more than half of her support, and she has to have a gross income (excluding SS) of less than the personal exemption amount ($4000 for 2015).
I learned this in an H&R Block income tax preparer class that ended just a few weeks ago. The same information should be in the instructions to your tax return.
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I learned this in an H&R Block income tax preparer class that ended just a few weeks ago. The same information should be in the instructions to your tax return.