I am married and my husband bought a house in July of 2016, but my name is not on the mortgage or deed to the house cause I owe chiled support. Show we file together?

[Phillip1 · Accepted solution]

Filing a joint return is almost always the most advantageous filing status.

You can file a joint tax return and get some of your refund back despite your back child support. The way to do this is to file a injured spouse claim with your joint tax return. There is one downside. The injured spouse claim will delay your refund by as many as 15-20 weeks.

To qualify as an injured spouse, you must meet the following criteria:

1. Your spouse must be liable for a debt that can be levied from your Federal tax refund. Those debts include tax debts, student loan debts, unpaid child support, state tax debt, or other non-tax federal debts, and;
2. You must have made and reported tax payments, such as federal income tax withheld from wages or estimated tax payments, or;
3. You claimed (or will claim) a refundable tax credit, such as the earned income credit or additional child tax credit on the joint return, and;
4. You are not legally obligated to pay the past-due amount.

To claim this in TurboTax, follow this path in the program:

1. Click the Federal Taxes TAB or Category in TurboTax (called Personal in Home and Business).
2. Click on the Other Tax Situations SubTAB or subcategory.
3. Find the section labeled Other tax Forms
4. Click start or update on the line for Miscellaneous tax forms
5. Click start next to the item for Report an injured or innocent spouse claim.
6. Click yes, then click continue past the innocent spouse section.

There are special rules for community property states. However, TurboTax will guide you through those as you make the entries in the injured spouse section.

[Carl]

For a married couple to file separate will always be the most costly way to file tax-wise. What you may think you "save" in debt, you pay to the IRS in the form of taxes. When a married couple files separate for any reason, they "automatically" disqualify themselves for a number of deductions they would otherwise qualify for if they filed joint.

In the case where one spouse is *NOT* obligated to pay a debt of the other spouse, they can file/include the Injured spouse form so that the non-obligated spouse will still get their portion of the refund. Now if you live in a community property state this may not make any difference, just as it would not make any difference if a married couple of a community property state filed separately.