Qualified Widow Or Widower

Marriage comes with a lot of benefits: love, companionship, higher tax deductions, support, and a built-in travel buddy and spider-killer. All good things. But when a spouse dies, all of those things can go away. Well, all of those things except the higher standard tax deduction. That’s because, thanks to the “qualified widow or widower” tax status, we can continue to take advantage of the marriage benefits of tax filing for two years after our spouse passes on by filing a married-filing-jointly tax return.

Now, this wouldn’t be an IRS tax status if it wasn’t complicated, so there are, of course, several caveats here. First, we have to have a dependent child that is not a foster child, but lives with us during the tax year in question. Second, we have to prove that we were paying more than half of the household expenses, even when our Beloved Spouse was still alive. Third, we can’t get remarried within those first two years. Fourth, we must have qualified to file a joint married return for at least one tax year prior to our Beloved Spouse’s death, even if we ended up filing separately.

There are rules beyond this—as always, it’s best to consult a tax expert if you have questions about your own sitch—but these are the major four.