Fact check: Head of household tax status depends on yearly costs, not housing type

BrieAnna J. Frank, USA TODAY
·3 min read

The claim: People in public or Section 8 housing can’t file taxes as head of household

On the first official day of the 2023 tax filing season, a Jan. 23 Facebook post (direct link, archive link) claimed taxpayers in some types of housing would only be eligible for one filing status.

“If you live in public housing or have Section 8 you cannot claim head of household as your filing status on your return!” the post reads. “Your filing status would be considered SINGLE.”

The post was shared more than 150 times in two days.

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Our rating: False

Living in public housing or having a Section 8 voucher does not automatically disqualify anyone from filing as head of household, a tax expert told USA TODAY. However, there are restrictions based on the amount of housing expenses paid by the resident that do affect some filers.

Yearly costs, not housing type, determines tax filing status

Living in public housing or having a Section 8 voucher “does not automatically disqualify someone” from claiming head of household as their tax filing status, said Garrett Watson, a senior policy analyst at the Tax Foundation.

Publication 501, an IRS document that outlines tax rules, says a person can file as head of household if they are unmarried on the last day of the year, paid more than half the cost of keeping up a home for the year and had a qualifying person living with them for more than half the year (except in some situations, such as a child who leaves temporarily for school or a dependent parent who does not live in the home).

The publication says expenses including rent, mortgage interest, home insurance, utilities and real estate taxes should be factored into a calculation of the cost of keeping up the home.

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“If a public program covered part of the housing expense, that needs to be accounted for to determine filing status,” Watson said.

That means taxpayers should “look closely at the numbers” to determine whether their costs qualify them for filing as head of the household, Watson said. Publication 501 includes a worksheet (p. 16) for taxpayers to determine whether they paid more than half the cost of keeping up their home.

The IRS Interactive Tax Assistant, a tool for determining filing status, does not ask users whether they are in public or Section 8 housing – only whether they paid more than half of the cost of their home's yearly upkeep.

USA TODAY reached out to the user who shared the claim for comment.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Fact check: Public housing recipients can still be head of household