Tax Tip of the Week
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Innocent Spouse or Injured Spouse?
For the week of
November 22, 1999
How responsible are you for your spouse's income tax liability
or other obligations to which tax refunds are applied? The Internal Revenue Service has specific guidelines to
determine when you are not liable for your spouse's debts. Of even greater concern to many are the financial obligations
of a prior spouse.
The "innocent spouse" rules are different from the "injured spouse" rules.
You may be able to claim "innocent spouse" status if you filed a joint return with your spouse (former
spouse) and the tax return had a tax underpayment caused by your spouse. You must establish that at the time of
filing the tax return, you didn't know and had no reason to know that there was an understatement of tax.
You may be considered an "injured spouse" if your income tax refund is being used to satisfy such things
as past due child support, alimony, income taxes, or student loans for your spouse.
Congress recognized the inequity of certain situations between spouses on federal income tax returns and set out
to provide relief where relief is due.
If you think you may be entitled to claim innocent
or injured spouse relief, please give us a call. We are here to see that you receive fair treatment on your income
tax returns.
Click here to view previous tax tips.
"Tax Tips" are published weekly to
provide useful tax information. Return to this site every week for helpful tax-cutting suggestions, tax reminders,
and current tax information.
The information contained in this site is of a general nature and should not be acted upon in your specific situation
without further details and/or professional assistance.
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to receive other tax-cutting information from time to time, please contact our office. We're here to help.
