My husband is filing married jointly. Who is legally entitled to tax money? We have 3 children. Lived together all of 2017

[Critter · Accepted solution]

There is no "legal" thing about it ... if you are filing a joint return with him (then you are both filing a joint return )   the refund belongs to both of you in the eyes of the IRS the same as if you had a balance due ... the IRS considers you both equally liable for the entire balance.

You will need to work it out between yourselves as to who gets what or get a divorce attorney and fight it out in court.

[Hal_Al]

Critter#2's answer is correct.
That said, there are accepted ways of allocating the refund (and that's what divorce lawyers do). None of the ways are really simple. But, one simple way is by income. If your husband has 75% of the income; then he gets 75% of the refund.
Where the IRS has an offset claim against one spouse (back taxes, unpaid student loans or child support) they actually have a form to allocate the refund <a rel="nofollow" target="_blank" href="https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f8379.pdf">https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f8379.pdf</a>

[Critter]

@Hal_Al   ... do we know why the form 8888 to split the refund is not in the program this year ?   It is functional in my professional tax program so I know it still exists.

[Hal_Al]

I'm not familiar with that form