After working for IRS for 10 years and being in private practice for 28 years, our firm has seen our share of innocent and injured spouse cases.
We have  successful defended hundreds of cases involving both innocent and injured spouses. We have on staff a former IRS Agent who was an audit manager and one of the countries true specialists in this area.
If you need immediate relief call us today.
 
Facts About Innocent, Injured Spouse
 
Injured spouse status and innocent spouse status are frequently confused with each other.
 
Innocent spouse status relieves a spouse of the responsibility for paying taxes that may then be collected from the other spouse. Most innocent spouse claims are filed after the tax return has been filed.


Injured spouse status involves obtaining a refund of a spouse’s interest in an overpayment that has been offset under I.R.C. § 6402.Most injure spouse returns get filed with a current tax return.


How Offset Issues Arise. When spouses file joint income tax returns, each spouse has a separate interest in the jointly reported income and in any overpayment.
If both spouses are liable for a debt described in section 6402, the entire overpayment may be offset. Offset issues arise where spouses file joint returns and only one spouse owes a section 6402 debt.
In this circumstance, an allocation must be made to determine the liable spouse’s interest in the overpayment, the amount that can be offset for the liable spouse’s debt, and the amount to be refunded to the non-liable spouse. Rev. Rul. 80-7, 1980-1 C.B. 296, amplified by Rev. Rul. 87-52, 1987-1 C.B. 347. Due to different property rights in income tax and withholding and other credits, there is a difference in the allocation process for community property states as opposed to the other states.
Injured Spouse Claims. If spouses file a joint income tax return and an obligation described in section 6402 is owed by one of the spouses, the Service will generally offset the entire overpayment. See Rev. Rul. 84-171, 1984-2 C.B. 310.
If the spouse who does not owe the obligation (referred to as the “injured spouse”) files a claim for his or her share of the overpayment (referred to as an “injured spouse claim”), the Service is required to refund his or her share of the overpayment. IRM 25.15.1.2.5; 31 C.F.R. §§ 285.2(f) and (g).
An injured spouse obtains his or her portion of the overpayment by filing a Form 8379. IRM 25.15.1.2.5.
An injured spouse claim can also be filed with an original return. As will be discussed below, in some circumstances the Service may have a common law right under state law to offset all or part of the injured spouse’s community property share of the overpayment.