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Dear Tax Talk,
My question has to do with how the IRS figures
out the refund due an injured spouse. We filed
a joint 2007 return that showed a refund, but
when the IRS calculated the injured spouse's portion
of our refund, they determined that my wife owed
taxes even after all credits were figured in;
consequently, she would not receive a refund.
They arrived at this by using the tax tables for my wife's income, but looking at her amount
of taxes owed as if she were filing separately. I always thought that we were allowed to pay the least amount
of tax allowable by law, so that is why we filed a joint return.
My question is, why did the IRS
use the married-filing-separately figures to arrive
at the conclusion that she would not receive a
refund on our joint return?
-- Billy
Dear Billy,
Don't get mad with the IRS; they're only trying to collect what you didn't pay. Congress has made the IRS the
bill collector not only for IRS taxes, but a whole host of other debts such as state taxes, child support and
delinquent student loans.
When only one spouse owes the debt,
the other spouse can apply for injured spouse
relief by attaching Form
8379 to the joint return.
In order to claim injured spouse
relief, the nondelinquent spouse must have paid
income taxes or be entitled to a refundable credit
such as the Earned Income Credit or Additional
Child Tax Credit (Form 8812). Form 8379 asks the
spouses to separate their income, deductions,
tax withholdings and credits between the both
of them.
To split the overpayment on the
return, the IRS uses the following steps.
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| IRS steps to split overpayment: |
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