Income tax

[kingfish]

When I filed for divorce I received paper work from the court ( I assume my wife did also ) stating that all debts/financial obligations would remain the same as in the marriage. How does this apply to income taxes?

[livealittle]

what exactly are you asking?

if you have a mortgage and only one name is on it, the taxpayer whose SSN the mortgage interest was paid under will get the 1098-Mortgage interest tax form.

if you have an IRS debt then whoever's SSN the debt is under will continue to be tracked by the IRS as owing the debt, possibly going to wage garnishment

if you had a business together, and it's a flow through organization, then the amount of income the flows through to each taxpayer will continue to do so.

other than those situations, I'm not sure what you are asking exactly.  The only debt interest that is deductible or that hits your personal income tax return is mortgage interest.  Business debt and interest payments that are for a flow through business will continue as they did prior to the divorce (my assumptions based on the little information you gave).


you can go to www.irs.gov and look up your questions, or post some more information.

[kingfish]

The situation is this: We have always filed married jointly. I called her this week to see if she had thought about how we would file this year. She informed me that she had already filed, single HOH and claimed both kids. We seperated in March of 08". Her filing this way will keep both of us from getting more of the taxes back. I know the IRS says she can file this way but was wondering if the court order of the status quo pertained to income taxes. Also to file HOH she has to have contributed more than 50% of the expenses. According to her testimony in court she only makes $600 a month. I give her $910 a month child support. Her $600 only covers her apartment. Does any of this matter or am I just SOL?

[Grace48]

I filed head of household and claimed both kids. They lived with me all year (the stbx did not live with us at all) and I make more per month than what he sends (if he bothers, ha) so I provided more than half their support. I called the IRS directly and the representative said they were my to claim.  However, when it comes to taxes, I have heard it all so this is just my experience. 

[InDenial]

I take it you are separated but not yet divorced?  Does she have a good grasp of math?

Assuming these two things, here is what I would do.

     1. Buy a copy of Turbo tax.

     2. Run the program with you two filing joint. Come up with an estimate of joint tax liability: filing together the two of you would owe X.

     3.  Next use the  program to make 3 new returns, one with you "married filing separately", one with her "married filing seperately" and one with her "HOH". This produces tax estimates of you paying Y and her paying Z if you both file "married filing separately", or you paying Y and her paying Z1 if she sticks with "HOH".

     ->   Presumably Z1 is the amount she already has on her return.
     ->   And presumably X < Y+Z
     ->   X may or may not be less than Y+Z1

     4.  Next based on these amounts, bargain with her. For example, suggest to her that if she agrees to file jointly with you, you will be responsible for X-(Z1-A) and she will only have to pay Z1-A.  Assuming that is a better deal for you than paying Y. She gets a bonus (amount A) for going along with what you want and going through the hassle of amending her return.

     5. You might also try to persuade her that filing HOH is not legal, based on what you told us. I wouldn't be confrontational about it, just give her the IRS publication with the appropriate lines highlighted. If she agrees that she shouldn't have filed "HOH" , then you offer to pay X-Z. In this case you don't need to offer a bonus, because she will already agree that she NEEDS to amend her return.


As far as I know you can't make her file jointly with you. The best you can do is persuade her that it's in HER interest to file jointly. If she doesn't want to file with you, YOUR only option is to file "married filing separately". So that amount is your starting position. You figure out some deal that allows you to pay less than that and get her to go along.

IMHO you really need to see the numbers yourself, and then show her in black and white what is and is not in her interest. Z1 (HOH status) may be a whole lot less than X/2 (it is in my case).  Don't be so sure that it's automatically in HER interest to file jointly with you.  If it isn't, I think you're going to have to sweeten the pot or persuade her the legal risk of HOH is too high.  She may have some good reason to believe that HOH is legal for her.

[kingfish]

Thank you InDenial, I am stuck on exactly what " half the cost of keeping up a home means ". Does that include the children?

[livealittle]

and here's something else.

all other things being equal, if 2 people file separately and both claim the kids, without an order from the court as to which parent gets the tax exemption, the IRS has it's own set of tie-breakers.  The final one is that the taxpayer with the highest AGI (and therefore tax liability) gets the exemption.

go to the irs website and read all about it.

[Wolfy]

According to my tax guy, here in MN, the one who has the kids 51% of the time or more is the head of household and gets the tax break.

[InDenial]

According to my tax guy, here in MN, the one who has the kids 51% of the time or more is the head of household and gets the tax break.

Here's my interpretation of publication 504 "Divorced or separated individuals". http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p504.pdf

If the parents share the kids exactly equally at 50%, THEN AND ONLY THEN you use the tie-breaker of who has the higher AGI. This is shown in table 4 on top of page 10.

• First, if only one of the divorcing spouses is the child's parent, the deduction goes to the parent.
• Second, if both of the divorcing individuals are a parent of the child, the deduction goes to the parent with whom the child lived for the longer period of time during the year.
• THIRD, if the child lived equal amounts with both, the deduction goes to the parent with higher AGI

This is not to say that you can't negoiate otherwise and have it in the divorce agreement. If someone has a separation agreement, it's best to spell that out there. I don't have such an agreement, and I don't know if Kingfish does either.  In my case I'm willing to file jointly with my STBX. We get along pretty well on money matters.

[InDenial]

Thank you InDenial, I am stuck on exactly what " half the cost of keeping up a home means ". Does that include the children?

Well that's a very good question. The IRS says to see publication 501,  http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p501.pdf

Page 9 says it includes property taxes, mortgage interest, rent, utilities, property insurance, repairs, food consumed on premises (groceries) and "other household expenses". It apparently does NOT include clothing, education, medical, transportation.

So maybe she lives very frugally, and what she makes is enough to cover half of the above.

Possibly you can persuade her that she shouldn't have filed HOH based on your reasoning plus the publication.  I don't know how reasonable she is or how much she fears an audit or how much she trusts the person who told her to file HOH. If you can't persuade her to your way of thinking, then I would try to appeal to her self interest, to make it worth her while to file jointly with you.

[princess09]

Actually, I don't have an enough idea about your problem because I have not yet married that's why I did not yet experience that so called divorce. But I still did my research and found this Tax Attorney, it says there that you should discuss this decision not only with your attorney or tax advisor, but also your spouse as well. If at all possible, try to reach an agreement with your spouse concerning this issue and document the result in writing.

[Lee Borden]

If you visit with a tax adviser and decide you're entitled to the HOH status, file for it. It's not your job to police Mom, and you'll burn up a lot of unnecessary energy doing so. If the Service catches it (not a certainty these days, I can assure you), they'll get you and Mom both to present your evidence, and then they'll decide who's entitled.