So two weeks ago my divorce was finalized. I was getting ready to do taxes and something has popped up.

Obviously for tax year 2025, we were still married. It makes sense to file married jointly but my ex is trying to screw me here and refuses to give me her W-2 and let me do it. So I have to file married separate. Luckily since it's an odd tax year, I am due to claim my 11 year old son. This lessens the tax burden greatly as I was set to owe about 4K and now owe 1600 due to the 2200 child tax credit.

My question is about the other years. So the child parenting plan breaks down the child support by overnights right. Since it needs to equal 365 days, my wife fought to get 183 vs 182. I didn't think this was a big deal at the time but now I'm worried this affects my ability to claim Head of Household. Based on my understanding, it goes by physical nights (not the court order) and not what's in the divorce decree and even in the decree it states odd years I am the custodian and even years I am the non custodian. I even read that if it's a tie, it would go by higher AGI which I have.

So I guess my question is even years I claim single and no dependents and odd years I can claim HOH and 1 dependent? I just wanted to make sure I'm not going to get screwed here.

The other thing is for tax year 2025, she's trying to claim him. I worry that might cause me problems in the future.

Also I don't know how the IRS can ever determine physical nights.

I definitely need to change my tax forms at work so they are taking out taxes at the single rate tho. It would have killed me if I couldn't claim that child tax credit for 2025. 4K is a lot of money I don't have after spending so much on lawyers lol.

I was just wondering if anyone here had any advice or experience with all this. Despite the cal of child support doing 183 vs 182......it is truely 50/50 in every aspect. I suspect he will be physically present with me way more than 50% TBH.

EDIT: Another thing, I suppose for 2025 even tho I claim my child, I still can't file HOH since we were still married as of Dec 25.