been married but filing as single - want to change

[denibeans63]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? ny

hi. my husband and i have been married for over 17 years. way back i had some issues with an outstanding fed student loan and he had great credit, and not knowing about the injured spouse law, we filed our taxes separately...I mean he wrote he was single/head of househhold and claimed our son, and I claimed as single/not married (so he got a big tax break and I got what a single person gets)

we have done this for years. My loan issue is cleared up and credit on the mend, but we have continued to file in this way for a while. My understanding is that the only people this is hurting is us, because if we filed together we would get a better tax break. here are my questions

1) for payroll purposes, etc, i always say I am "single" as has he. If I change now, will that be questioned by the IRS or will they just assume we finally got married?
2) are there negative repurcussions to IRS (if they find out) realizing that for all those years we WERE married (again. only husband is claiming our child)
3) does filing taxes together link your credit somehow? while mine is better now, his is exceptional. I don't want to pull him down at all.
thanks

 

[LdiJ]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? ny

hi. my husband and i have been married for over 17 years. way back i had some issues with an outstanding fed student loan and he had great credit, and not knowing about the injured spouse law, we filed our taxes separately...I mean he wrote he was single/head of househhold and claimed our son, and I claimed as single/not married (so he got a big tax break and I got what a single person gets)

we have done this for years. My loan issue is cleared up and credit on the mend, but we have continued to file in this way for a while. My understanding is that the only people this is hurting is us, because if we filed together we would get a better tax break. here are my questions

1) for payroll purposes, etc, i always say I am "single" as has he. If I change now, will that be questioned by the IRS or will they just assume we finally got married?
2) are there negative repurcussions to IRS (if they find out) realizing that for all those years we WERE married (again. only husband is claiming our child)
3) does filing taxes together link your credit somehow? while mine is better now, his is exceptional. I don't want to pull him down at all.
thanks

What you do for payroll purposes is irrelevant to the situation. You are merely estimating what your taxes will be and withholding accordingly. The IRS does not receive copies of your W4s.

You could be very wrong in thinking that you would have had better results filing a joint return. You filed your returns very illegally. You should have filed married filing separately and probably would not have been eligible for some of the credits you had received had you done so.

Filing together does NOT link your credit. At a minimum you either need to start filing joint returns, or filing married filing separately. Get yourself a consult with a local tax attorney.