Posted by LWM Team on Tue, May 11, 2010
If you and your spouse file tax jointly, your visible signature is no surprise. If you can’t recognize your signature your spouse may have signed your name. If you don’t recall consenting to your spouse signing, it may be forged. Very often, this only becomes apparent once the IRS puts out feelers because they want money owed on your spouse’s tax return. To begin with, if you had no clue about the filing, you wouldn’t expect the IRS to come after you for money.
The only way to establish if you carry liability for money owed by your spouse is dependent on the filing history you shared. In the case of an unlawful signature, the IRS expects you to persuade them to change the position of the filing from joint to separate. You must not have directly given, or implied through your actions (Tacit Consent Rule), you consented to your spouse placing your signature on the filing. If so, you will be considered an “innocent spouse” and won’t be held responsible for a return without your consent.
Tacit Consent Rule in the Case of Ashworth v Commissioner, TC Memo 1990-423. Pamela Ashworth completed joint tax returns with her husband during their marriage from 1976 to 1981. The return for 1982 was audited and highlighted an outstanding balance. The return in 1982 was also a joint filing but Pamela Ashworth denied signing it. The Court established she did not lodge a separate tax return in 1982 and therefore the pattern of filing jointly from 1976 to 1981 had not been changed. The 1982 return was deemed authorized and lawful. It was based on upholding the Tacit Consent Rule (implied through your actions).
It’s not easy to prove your spouse forged your signature if you can’t show you diverted from a history of filing joint tax returns. The IRS uses that history to uphold the Tacit Consent rule. In order to gain tax relief, it’s up to you, to prove the rule does not apply to a joint filing in question.
Posted by LWM Team on Wed, Mar 10, 2010
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Frequently when someone is issued an IRS wage levy, they may worry about whether their spouse’s income will also be subject to the levy. The fact is that the IRS is not allowed to take income from your spouse if they are deemed to not be liable for the taxes, whether or not you filed a joint return.
If you filed separate tax returns the situation is very simple; only you can be held liable for the IRS wage levy and only you will have to pay it. You are the person who signed the return, and therefore, under the law, you are the only person who can be held responsible for paying off the debt.
Additionally, if you have been issued an IRS wage levy for debt from a return you filed a few years ago with an ex-spouse, the IRS will not hold your new spouse accountable for any debt – it is either yours or your ex-spouse’s.
If you have filed a joint return with your current spouse, they will still not necessarily be held liable for your tax debt. The IRS has rules and regulations in place to protect so-called ‘innocent’ spouses from being held accountable for debt that is not theirs and having things such as IRS wage levies imposed upon them. ‘Innocence’ here is determined by whether the IRS decides if your spouse knew about the unpaid taxes and whether they received any of the ‘benefits’ of them. If they decide your spouse didn’t know about the unpaid taxes and/or didn’t feel any benefits, they will be granted relief, otherwise they very well could be subject to a wage levy too, although what happens is up to the IRS.