Innocent Spouse Tax Relief: Could it Save Your Family?

Agnes explains innocent spouse relief: how one spouse's unpaid taxes on a joint return can lead to liens on both partners' accounts and home, and how the other spouse may qualify for relief. She also covers injured spouse relief, relief for new partners in a business, how slow IRS processing has become, and why self-employed people should consider filing separately.

Takeaways

• When you file jointly you are both responsible for the tax owed, so a spouse who handles the business taxes can put your accounts and home at risk.
• To seek innocent spouse relief you generally must show you did not know about the problem and did not control the money; each case is different.
• If one spouse is self-employed, Agnes advises filing married filing separately to protect the other spouse's credit and assets.

Chapters

• 0:00 Welcome and Black Friday prep
• 1:33 Why people need offers and easy checkout
• 2:46 Today's topic: innocent spouse relief
• 3:49 How one spouse's unpaid taxes become a joint problem
• 7:30 Divorce and widow examples
• 10:10 Family businesses and shared responsibility
• 11:48 How someone qualifies
• 14:59 Advice: self-employed spouses file separately
• 16:02 Injured spouse versus innocent spouse
• 18:10 How liens show up years later
• 23:28 Partnership relief for prior-year taxes
• 24:31 How long the process takes now
• 26:08 Collection on hold and what happens to liens
• 30:19 Communication between spouses
• 31:57 Other consequences and closing thoughts

Conversation and opinion, not medical, legal, tax or financial advice.