Innocent Spouse

What is the Innocent Spouse Program?

Innocent Spouse Relief is, in some cases, difficult to show but can be of excellent use to you if you owe the Internal Revenue Service money because of your ex spouse.

Do you have any liability as the spouse of somebody who has a tax debt? Exactly what, if you are going through a divorce and technically the debt is your partner’s.

Here’s the answer to these questions. If, you submitted joint returns with your partner throughout your marriage and you both signed the returns you filed every year, you both share equally in the tax duty that was accumulated during the marriage. It is a tough area to obtain relief from the IRS and just one instance where the IRS feels this might be a genuine defense. This defense is called Innocent Spouse.

Just know that it is difficult to get this authorized and there are a number of requirements you will have to meet.

Here they are:

• You have submitted a joint return.
• The Tax Debt needs to be DIRECTLY connected to just your partner.
• You have to prove you had no idea what your partner was doing with the return once you signed it
• This needs to be asserted within 2 years of the IRS doing something about it against you.

Your optimal chance is to be legitimately separated or separated for at least a year prior to making your Innocent Spouse Claim.And again there are 3 types of Innocent Spouse Claims. You will have to decide which one is optimal for your claim.

Classic Innocent Spouse: You are saying that you did not understand your spouse was not paying your taxes. Lack of knowledge!

Different Liability Election: During your marital relationship you had the appropriate deductions secured of your incomes. Although you may have submitted collectively with your partner, you will need to re-file individually and show the following:

• That you did file a joint return
• The return in concern did contain an ignored tax
• You have actually been separated from your partner for a minimum of 12 months and has actually been under 2 years because the IRS acted against you.

Equitable Relief: This is where you absolutely had no idea exactly what was going on. You didn't assist with financial resources at all. You didn't contribute to running the household business. You just signed a return and assumed everything was being cared for. The credentials are:

• You should have filed a joint return
• You are not able to acquire relief under Classic Spouse Relief or Separate Liability
• No more than 2 years have passed since the IRS did something about it versus you
• You need to show that no fraudulent asset transfer has occurred between you and your partner
• You need to show that you or your partner hasn't transferred property to prevent paying the taxes due
• You have to prove that it is unfair to hold you responsible for your partner's tax costs