Information About the Household

The Household Information section captures non-financial information about other members of an individual's household, and other important information which may affect the eligibility and entitlement of the household, for example, household members' relationships to the applicant and tax relationships.

Similar to the primary applicant details, this information is gathered by capturing basic demographic and contact information. Questions determine whether the household member is an applicant or not. Based on entered information, the system can gather everything that is required of an applicant, or the subset of information required of non-applicants.

Each time a household member is added, the current picture of the household being built up is displayed, and more people can be added as required. A reminder is displayed of what other people should be included, so that the individual is presented with all the information they need to decide whether more people should be added or not. The aim is to ensure that the correct household is captured before moving on to capture household relationships, tax status, and tax relationships for each individual in the household.

The set of questions asked to determine tax filing status for household members is clear and intuitive. The tax filing questions are asked of a household in a logical sequence:

1. Identify which members in the household are planning to file taxes
2. If there are any married couples in the household and at least one of the spouses is chosen as a tax filer, then a question is asked if the married couples are filing taxes jointly.
3. Identify any members claimed as a tax dependent by another tax filer; otherwise they are non-filers.
4. Tax filers that claim dependents and spouses filing joint returns cannot be claimed as dependents. Tax filers that do not claim any dependents are looped through to determine if anyone else claims them. This is to support scenarios where a tax dependent also has a requirement to file taxes.

Throughout this section questions are displayed dynamically, as in keeping with the rest of the application. For example, student questions will not be asked of household members above age 21, as this is the age limit for individuals necessary for Medicaid household composition rules.