You're entitled to your portion of the refund if you follow injured spouse procedures. As you didn't include them with your original return you must file Form 8379 separately. However, one alternative is to just let the refund pay the student loan balance - it's not going to go away.
Injured spouse relief is when one spouse's
refund allocable to her/his income is taken by the Government to satisfy child
support, back taxes, an unpaid student loan, etc. To request injured spouse
relief you need to insure that if you file a joint return, you include Form
8379 to claim injured spouse relief. This will prevent the "injured"
spouse's share of the refund from being offset by the debt. Turbotax supports
this form. Injured spouse (Form 8379) is included under the Federal Taxes tab.
Look at under the federal review for other tax situations.
An injured spouse return can be
e-filed.
In TurboTax, type "injured
spouse" in the find box at the top of the page to find the correct
location to claim injured spouse. Alternatively, you can also navigate to this
screen by doing the following:
- Select the Federal Taxes tab (Personal
tab in the Home & Business edition).
- Select the Other Tax Situations subtab.
- Scroll down the Other Tax Situations
screen until you see the Other Tax Forms section.
- Click on the Start/Update button to the
right of the Miscellaneous Tax Forms category.
- Click on the Start/Update button to the
right of the Report an injured or innocent spouse claim category.
You don't mention where you live. As
an additional comment, the rules are sometimes different if you live in a
community property state (Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New
Mexico, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin.) In those states, even with
injured spouse relief, the relief may not be as complete as it would be in
other states. If you live in one of those states, see IRS Publication 555 for a
more complete discussion of injured spouse in a community property state. It
can be found at http://www.irs.gov/publications/p555/ar02.html#d0e928
