Internal Revenue Service
Revenue Ruling

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 Rev. Rul. 72-43

1972-1 C.B. 4

Sec. 2

IRS Headnote

The Revenue Service will not follow the decision in Clair Smith, attributing head of household status to a taxpayer maintaining a household that was the principal place of abode of her adopted son but not also her principal place of abode.

Full Text

Rev. Rul. 72-43

The Internal Revenue Service will not follow the decision of the United States Court of Appeals in Clair Smith v. Commissioner, 332 F. 2d 671 (1964), as a precedent in the disposition of similar cases involving a taxpayer's status as "head of a household" as defined in section 2(b)(1)(A) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1954.

In Smith, the court attributed head of household status to a taxpayer who maintained a household that was the principal place of abode of her adopted son even though that household was not also the principal place of abode of the taxpayer.

The term "head of household," as defined in section 2(b)(1)(A) of the Code (section 1(b)(2)(A) of the Code for taxable years beginning before 1971), includes an individual who is not married at the close of his taxable year, and who is not a surviving spouse, and who "maintains as his home a household which constitutes for such taxable year the principal place of abode, as a member of such household" of various persons, including a legally adopted child of the taxpayer.

The legislative history of this provision of the law indicates that Congress intended it to apply only where the taxpayer and such other member of the household live together in such household, for the entire taxable year (except for temporary absences due to special circumstances). House Report 586, Eighty-second Congress, C.B. 1951-2, 362 and 434; Senate Report 781, Eighty-second Congress, C.B. 1951-2, 554; House Report 1337, Eighty-third Congress, 5 and A9; and Senate Report 1622, Eighty-third Congress 4, 5, and 159.

Accordingly, section 2(b)(1)(A) of the Code applies only where the taxpayer and his qualified dependent maintain their principal place of abode together in the same household for the entire taxable year.