Why is it requiring a year for the innocent spouse form when I'm only claiming injured spouse? I did not answer any questions on the innocent spouse form.

[Opus 17]

"Injured" spouse is when you are filing a joint return with your spouse and your spouse has debts from before the marriage, and you want to keep "your share" of the joint refund from being taken.  You can't file an injured spouse form if you are married filing separately, or to be relieved of debts that occurred during the marriage.

"Innocent" spouse is filed after you have been divorced at least 6 months, and the IRS is coming after you for errors or debts from a joint return filed when you were married, and you are asking the IRS to place all the blame on your former spouse, even though you signed a joint return.  You can't file an innocent spouse form if you are still married. 

Turbotax has a very specific interview that was required by the IRS to ask specific questions to make sure you are actually qualified to use one of those forms before it will actually begin to prepare the form.

What is your situation, and what questions do you think are wrong?

[sudocl]

I couldn't include much detail with the limited space for my first question, but basically, I'm trying to file injured spouse. I selected "file innocent or injured spouse" and innocent spouse comes up first. I have skipped all of the innocent spouse questions as those do not pertain to my situation and just answered the injured spouse questions. However, when i get to the wrap up and finalization, it keeps flagging that area stating that i need to enter a tax year for the innocent spouse form. Initially I accidentally started filing out that form (8857) but I've since gone through, deleted the form altogether and started over. I also tried just answering the two questions at the beginning of the innocent spouse form and then continuing on to the injured spouse section but it still keeps flagging it. It will not allow me to efile until I enter a year- but the place where it is requiring a year is on the innocent spouse form. Long story short, I cannot seem to just file Injured spouse without it wanting me to fill out information for innocent spouse. I hope that clarifies better!

[KathrynG3]

Yes, thank you for the clarification. If anything at all was answered in the Innocent spouse section, it will trigger the request for the year. I recommend these steps:

• Deleting both innocent spouse and injured spouse forms again and confirming the deletions.
• Signing out of TurboTax
• Closing the browser window completely
• Re-opening an incognito Chrome browser and signing in to TurboTax
• Entering the Injured Spouse details only (leaving anything for Innocent Spouse completely blank on both screens by clicking Continue twice)

[sudocl]

I just followed these steps exactly (deleting both forms, logging out, logging back in incognitio- I even tried using a different browser altogether) and now it's asking for my spouses name instead of year!

I'm guessing because at some point in troubleshooting, I tried typing in the year and just not answering any other questions, so now that field is being bypassed. Or something. I think I'm just going to have to clear everything and start from scratch which really annoys me. Especially since I've already paid since I did not realize it was going to prevent me from being able to efile.  I did notice that despite clearing both forms multiple times, the injured spouse eligibility check boxes are still selected which makes me think there's something within Turbo Tax that is not completely deleting the forms. But I've cleared cache, cookies, changed browsers, opened in incognito and nothing seems to work. Very frustrating.

[VictoriaD75]

Try the instructions in the link that follows and note the instructions below.

Pay close attention to the screens, as some of them apply to innocent spouse relief, which is different. Leave those questions blank if you only want to claim injured spouse relief.

How to Add Form 8379

What is Form 8379

What is the TurboTax phone number

[DBrettB]

Hi.  

I have the same question, and I don't think Intuit understands what Turbo Tax is doing in the innocent and injured spouse section.  One cannot get to the injured spouse questions without first going through innocent spouse.  The first question is for what years one will file Innocent Spouse.  There is no "None" selection, so adding no years is the only way to express "No". 

Then a screen pops up which has a view of the 8857 form for Innocent Spouse, and it asks the taxpayer to fill out the form. The only way through is to click "Continue" without adding anything to the form.  There is no "No" option.  TT apparently cannot detect and process that no data was added and that the Innocent Spouse form is not relevant to the return. 

The next stop is Injured Spouse, but there is no option to get rid of the phantom Innocent Spouse 'information'.   The application thinks some data must be there for innocent spouse and that the form is simply incomplete.  

I submit to you that there is no workaround; this is a flaw in the application programming that needs to be corrected.  I believe I've had the issue in past years, too.  I think Intuit should just submit a request for a change in the programming that would affect next year's taxes.  The earlier the request goes in, the sooner it will be fixed.  Some tax filer in some future year will benefit, but the request should be made now.  It's not sufficient just to suggest some workarounds, discover they didn't help, and do nothing to change the application in the future. 

Please request the change.  Surely some programmer's ego must engage and he or she will be driven to correct the error. 

Best regards, 

Brett