Yes. If you file married filing jointly, the IRS will apply your joint tax refund to back taxes that your wife owes. However, if you want to file jointly then you can file an injured spouse claim in order to get your portion of the joint tax refund, if you meet the requirements to file this claim.
There are specific requirements
that need to be met in order to qualify as an injured spouse. In order to
qualify:
- You need
to file married filing jointly
- You cant
have any legal responsibility to pay your spouse's debt.
- You would need to have earned income and/or taxable income that
entitles you to a tax refund unless you or your children are
eligible for and claiming the American Opportunity tax credit. The
American Opportunity tax credit is a partially refundable tax credit that
you can qualify for if you are pursuing your first bachelor's degree and
meet the requirements to claim the credit. Please refer
to the questions on page 1 of Form 8379 for more information. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f8379.pdf
- The debt
has to be subject to collection through the income tax return
- Please refer to page 1 of the IRS instructions for Form 8379,
under the heading, "are you an injured spouse?" to review
these requirements. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i8379.pdf
To
file this claim in Turbo Tax:
- Log
into your account
- click
"take me to my return"
- click
on the "federal taxes" tab
- click
on "other tax situations"
- scroll
down to "report an injured or innocent spouse claim" and click
"start"
- The
next screen that comes up says, "do you want to claim innocent spouse or
injured spouse". answer yes
- The
first screens that come up are for filing an innocent spouse claim. Just go to
the bottom of these screens and click on "continue". The next screens
will ask you questions about your injured spouse claim. Answer all these
questions in order to file this claim.
Please refer to the following FAQ to
learn more about filing this claim in Turbo Tax. https://ttlc.intuit.com/replies/3326788