Am I responsible for my spouse's debt?
IRS Income Tax Innocent Spouse Relief Help Port St Lucie, FL
Did you know that you can get out of the tax debt due to the misdeeds or fraud committed by your spouse? IRS Income Tax Innocent Spouse Relief Help Port St Lucie, FL was designed to alleviate unjust situations where one spouse was clearly the victim of fraud perpetrated by their spouse or ex-spouse.
By requesting innocent spouse relief, you can be relieved of responsibility for paying tax, interest, and penalties if your spouse (or former spouse) improperly reported items or omitted items on your tax return. Generally, the tax, interest, and penalties that qualify for relief can only be collected from your spouse (or former spouse). However, you are jointly and individually responsible for any tax, interest, and penalties that do not qualify for relief. The IRS can collect these amounts from either you or your spouse (or former spouse). Innocent spouse relief only applies to individual income or self-employment taxes. For example, Household Employment taxes, Individual Shared Responsibility payments, and business taxes and trust fund recovery penalty for employment taxes are not eligible for innocent spouse relief.
Types of Relief
There are three types of relief from the joint and several liability of a joint return:
- Innocent Spouse Relief provides you relief from additional tax you owe if your spouse or former spouse failed to report income, reported income improperly or claimed improper deductions or credits.
- Separation of Liability Relief provides for the separate allocation of additional tax owed between you and your former spouse or your current spouse you're legally separated from or not living with, when an item wasn't reported properly on a joint return. You're then responsible for the amount of tax allocated to you. Refunds aren't available under separation of liability relief.
- Equitable Relief may apply when you don't qualify for innocent spouse relief or separation of liability relief for something not reported properly on a joint return and generally attributable to your spouse. You may also qualify for equitable relief if the amount of tax reported is correct on your joint return but the tax wasn't paid with the return.