Can the IRS take my refund if there is unpaid tax over 10 years old?
My wife incurred a fair amount of debt hiring sketchy people to do her taxes well before I met her. They didn't pay the tax she owed and made off with the money and she was left with a couple of years of huge unpaid tax debt.
We got married and I was not in any position to pay it off. Since we got married, I paid our taxes to be sure it was all done right. We were married in 2007. Over the years we've been married, most of them taxes were filed jointly, I have never gotten a return when I was due one because of my wife's debt. I know that I can file for "injured spouse" but didn't want to. I didn't want to create more problems or inadvertently turn up the heat on her.
This year, I was expecting to get a refund, a) because it has been over 10 years since she incurred her debt and the IRS has a rule that allows them only 10 years to pursue debt and b) a couple of years ago we were due $4 and got a refund check for that amount. She received a letter today addressed to only her despite our joint filing, that our return would not be coming but would be going towards her debt from 2008.
I am reading this: Internal Revenue Code section 6502 provides that the length of the period for collection after assessment of a tax liability is 10 years.
My question is, can they continually collect on this debt that is way past 10 years?
