How do i file an innocent spouce claim

[djandjessicawils]

It says no claim available, I cant file because I don't meet all of the qualifications, but I do. My wife owes thousands of dollars in student loans but Im not responcible for them.

[Opus 17]

The innocent spouse procedure only applies if the debts were incurred by your spouse before your marriage.  If the debts were incurred during your marriage, you are stuck with them by law.  If you file a joint return, or filed joint returns before while you were married, you agreed to be jointly responsible for all tax matters.

There are only two ways to get out of tax debts that your spouse owes from during the marriage.  One is to file as married filing separately.  (This may have other negative consequences, of course.)  The other is to get a divorce, and then file an injured spouse form, in which you claim that you should not be responsible for marriage debts because your spouse did something behind your back.  You can't file the injured spouse form until you've been divorced at least a year.

If the debts are from before the marriage, you should qualify.  Run the interview again and check your answers.

[Critter]

Opus ... i think you have it backwards ... Injured spouse is for debts that occur Before the marriage & Innocent spouse is for those during the marriage.

[Opus 17]

Yes, you are correct.  I added a replacement answer below.  In any event, since the Turbotax interview is required by the IRS to include screening questions to weed out invalid claims, it is possible that the taxpayer is either looking for the wrong form for their situation, or simply doesn't qualify.

[Opus 17]

There are two different forms that get confused.

Form 8379 Injured Spouse is used when your tax refund from a joint return is taken to satisfy a past debt incurred by your spouse before the marriage.  Injured spouse applies to debts that are owed only by your spouse.

Form 8857 Innocent Spouse is used when you are being held responsible for a tax bill from a joint return with your spouse, when you argue that only your spouse should be responsible.  You must first understand that when you file a joint return, both spouses take full responsibility for the reported income, deductions and tax.  If that joint return is later found to be in error, or fraudulent, both spouses are responsible.  The Innocent Spouse form is used when you want to claim that your spouse alone is responsible for the error and the tax.  Usually, you must be divorced or separated to file for Innocent Spouse relief.  Innocent spouse relief only applies to joint debts from past joint returns, and does not apply to past debts owed by one spouse.

The Turbotax interview is designed to direct you to the correct form, and to disallow incorrect claims (to reduce the number of nuisance and invalid claims the IRS has to process).  If Turbotax tells you that you don't qualify, then you either misunderstand the correct form to use, or you may not qualify due to the facts and circumstances.

You can file either form by downloading the paperwork from the IRS directly, but carefully read the instructions and make sure you have a valid claim.

https://www.irs.gov/uac/about-form-8857

https://www.irs.gov/uac/form-8379-injured-spouse-allocation