Is this legal?

[angfarm]

What is the name of your state? Missouri

The IRS is holding my refund for taxes my husband owes prior to our marrage. We were married 7-4-04. They told me over the phone they were going to hold my refund until my husband filed the back taxes. We went to our local IRS office and filed his 00-03 taxes. Then they sent me notice they were taking taxes he owes for years 2000-2003 out of my 2005 refund. We live in Missouri and it is not a community property state. I filed a injured spouse form. All of the income for 04 and 05 was MINE as he had no income for those tax years. There is supposed to be an IRS Advocate working on the case but, the situation seems to be worse. They are holding close to 6,000 of my money. Is this legal? What can I do?
Please advise.

[LdiJ]

Originally Posted by angfarm

What is the name of your state? Missouri

The IRS is holding my refund for taxes my husband owes prior to our marrage. We were married 7-4-04. They told me over the phone they were going to hold my refund until my husband filed the back taxes. We went to our local IRS office and filed his 00-03 taxes. Then they sent me notice they were taking taxes he owes for years 2000-2003 out of my 2005 refund. We live in Missouri and it is not a community property state. I filed a injured spouse form. All of the income for 04 and 05 was MINE as he had no income for those tax years. There is supposed to be an IRS Advocate working on the case but, the situation seems to be worse. They are holding close to 6,000 of my money. Is this legal? What can I do?
Please advise.

All you can do is keep working with the Advocates office...and keep in mind that these things can often take a great deal of time. If you haven't spoken directly to the advocate's office, you should do so.

[angfarm]

Thanks for the response. I have tallked the Atlanta GA. office and they said the Advocates are the one's that have applied my refund to his unpaid balance. I called the Advocate and they told me they are working on his debt and wanted me to send another copy of my Injured spouse form. I did but, I can't see where they are doing anything to help me. I just keep getting these letters stating they have applied another year. I ask if the Injured spouse form is going to protect me from his debt and they wont answer my question. It is going on 6 months since I filed. I kind of feel like they are playing games with us. It makes me want to never file taxes again. What a mess. I will call again tomorrow and see if they will tell me anything. I'm wondering if I need to hire a lawyer.

[abezon]

It takes them 2-4 months to process an injured spouse claim. You might contact a local enrolled agent to see if you filled out the injured spouse forms properly. An EA can also help you deal with the IRS, since EAs know the lingo & can generally get to the relevant questions/answers faster than the ordinary taxpayer.

If you still find yourself getting the run around after 3 months & the Advocate's office is not helping, you can have a tax pro help you write a very clear, concise letter & get your congressperson to slap a cover letter on it saying, essentially, "Fix this!" This puts your case into "controlled correspondence" status & the IRS please-don't-cut-our-budget office monitors what happens. You have to go through channels before your rep will do this.

Good luck.

[LdiJ]

I will add some additional advice. When you get your returns prepared for 2006, have them prepared as joint, but also as married filing separately so see what kind of results you get. You may turn out to be one of the lucky couples where filing separately doesn't hurt you or doesn't hurt you much.

You may not want to go through this again.

[angfarm]

H&R Block did my taxes for me and sent the Atlanta office a letter for me a couple of months ago. I think I may try to have her write another letter for me to send to the congressman.(Thanks for the advice). The strange part is that about half the people I have talked to at the IRS agree with me on this. Some have even told me they were sorry for what is happening. One even wrote the Advocate's for me (a second letter) a couple of weeks ago.
I will try to talk to "Tax Law" to find out the best (legal) way for me to file in the future. I sure don't want to go through this nightmare again. My husband is a dependent and I should have a right to claim him. I just don't know what the best way would be to do it.

Thank you all so much.

[abezon]

Actually, the easiest way to avoid this in future is to adjust your W-4 so that you don't have any refund for the buzzards to grab. Instead, strive to owe about $200 every year.

Definitely go back to Block for a followup letter. It's been long enough that you might be able to get your rep's office involved now.

[angfarm]

Thanks, I changed my W4 online a couple of months ago. They are holding NOTHING out now. I had already paid in enough to take care of the rest of the year so I will have to re-adjust it again after the first of next year. I was planning on owing them some and then filing for an extention just outa spite from now on. I don't think I would mind paying a little interest for a year or two. H&R suggested putting all the extra pay in a savings account, draw interest, and pay them at the end of the year.