If you filed a joint tax return with your spouse, and he owes back child support, the Internal Revenue Service may garnish your share of the tax refund to pay his debt. You may be able to protect your refund by asking the IRS for relief as an injured spouse. To do this, you must meet certain IRS qualifications and submit Form 8379.
Filing Joint Taxes and Child Support
Overdue child support debt is one of the legal obligations that causes the IRS to garnish tax refunds. Garnishment simply means that the IRS will reduce your refund and offset it to pay past-due child support.
If you file taxes separately from your spouse, your refund won't be affected even if his refund is subject to garnishment. However, if you file a joint tax return, the IRS ordinarily will seize the entire refund to settle your spouse's debt, even though the debt is not yours. To get the refund you are entitled to, you'll need to reach out to the IRS.
Consider also: Tax Filing Status: How to Choose the Correct Filing Status
Qualifying as an Injured Spouse
To qualify as an injured spouse and protect your refund, you have to meet several IRS guidelines. First, the back child support isn't a debt you are legally responsible for.
Also, you must have paid federal income tax or claimed a refundable tax credit for that tax year. This could come through withholding from your paycheck if you earned income at a job. If you don't have income, haven't paid any taxes and aren't eligible for tax credits, your share of any joint refund would be zero.
Filling Out Form 8379
After leading you through a series of questions to determine whether you qualify, Form 8379 asks you for information from your joint tax return, such as income, adjustments to income, deductions, exemptions, credits other than the earned income credit, other taxes, federal income tax withheld and any other tax payments. The IRS determines the amount of the joint refund that you're entitled to based on these figures.
Filing the Form
You can file Form 8379 along with your joint tax return. You can download it from IRS.gov and print it out. It is likely you won't come across this form as part of the usual progression through an online tax program, so find "Injured Spouse Allocation" in the program's index or do an internal search for "injured spouse" or "Form 8379."
The IRS recommends that you write "Injured Spouse" in the top left corner of the first page of the joint return when returning the form by mail.
Deadlines and Process Time
According to the IRS, it generally takes about 14 weeks to process a Form 8379 filing or 11 weeks if it was filed electronically with your joint return. If you file the form separately – for example, if you learn about the garnishment only after you sent in your joint return – it takes about eight weeks after the return has been processed.
Consider also: Where's My Tax Refund: An Easy Guide