You are considered an Injured Spouse (not to be confused with an Innocent Spouse), if you are filing a joint tax return with your spouse and all of a sudden instead of getting the refund you were anticipating you find out that your handsome husband (or lovely wife) owes back taxes, child support, student loan payments – you get the idea.
Publication 8379 has the definition and the form is there for you to determine yourself if you can get back YOUR portion of the tax refund that you have calculated. If there is money from your spouse that he or she was suppose to get back, that will go towards whatever it is that they are trying to pay off.
If you are a California resident, sorry, California does not have the Injured Spouse relief provision. Remember my motto, please consult your own tax professional to see how this affects your situation!
I’ve dealt with Injured and Innocent Spouse Relief and some free advice here is that you need to make sure that your paperwork and financial dealings are clear, properly dated and separate. Questions that will be asked are on the reasonableness of the claim.
At the state level, a lot of the claims may not fly because remember, in some states, and California is one of them, property is treated as community property. That means, dear readers, it is split fifty-fifty. The love, the income and the debt!
That can make for some sticky dealings in a marriage so make sure if you are thinking of getting married that you talk money issues out to prevent them from surfacing later.
Kim Greenblatt
You are in Kim Greenblatt’s blog, profitable, in a piece on Injured Spouse Relief.
Tags: Business, FTB, Injured Spouse, IRS, tax relief, taxes