Confusing Tax Mess

Oregon

My 'husband' and I were married in a church ceremony in 1987 but we never got around to getting the marriage license. I was only sixteen at the time but had parental approval. When I went to get my driver's license and social security number for the first time, I was able to get everything with my husband's last name as my own by just showing our joint bank account book as proof we were married.

Later, we filed taxes together as married. The last time we filed taxes was in 1993 and we still owe a lot of money for that tax year. After dealing with the IRS with that year and a few before that, (it was a total nightmare) my husband stopped filing his returns. I did not work until 1996 so I did not file them either and by this point I did not want to be legally married.

Now I have a dilemma, I need to file at least my own taxes for my earnings over the last five years but I don't know how to do this. Should I file as single or married filing seperately? And I don't want to wait till my husband gets his act together to file together because he will owe A LOT of money and penalties and I don't want that around my neck again.

Also, will filing single spark an audit? Will they want to know why or see proof of divorce or something? Am I liable for the back taxes we owe on the 1993 return?

(I have changed my social security number back to my madien name when I began working and realized that it was wrong. The people there were shocked that I was able to get it without showing a marriage license in the first place.)

First of all, are you sure that the marriage was not valid because of the lack of the certificate. In some states, the church service alone would validate the marriage. So the first thing I suggest is to find out for sure if you are married or not.

If you are married, file as married filing separately because you don’t want to get tagged with any of your husband’s tax debt. If you are single, file as single because that is what you are. I doubt the way you file will trigger an audit. If they have a question about it, they will more than likely ask you the question and no more. In any case, they would have nothing to audit other than the returns you are now filing, since you had no income for periods before that. (1993 is not subject to audit now).