Will I have to pay husbands child support?

[Whitneyasif]

My husband had a child before we were married and owes back child support around 10,000. He died  in March 2021, with no estate or life insurance. If I file jointly with him, can they garnish my taxes for his back support owed?  

[JulieS]

You can file Form 8379, Injured Spouse Allocation, with your joint tax return. This will protect your portion of the refund.

The form allocates income, tax withheld, deductions and credits between the spouses. Only the portion allocated to the spouse with the debt can be seized to pay that debt. 

To file this form in TurboTax:

1. Open or continue your return.
2. In the search box, enter injured spouse and then select the Jump to link in the search results.
3. Answer Yes to "Do you want to claim innocent or injured spouse relief?"
4. On the screen that says, "Your Request For Innocent Spouse Relief" just click Continue. That is not the form you need. 
5. Carefully answer the remaining questions in the section.

Filing this form will delay your tax refund about 14 weeks. 

[Opus 17]

Unfortunately, yes they could, unless the state child services agency cancelled the debt in the federal offset system due to his death.

You can protect your refund by filing as married filing separately (one return for each spouse), or you can include the injured spouse form with your joint return.  If you file MFS, then what you see as your refund is exactly what you get.  If you file a joint return, you may pay less total tax overall, but you won't know how much of your refund you will actually get until the form is processed.  It's basically a request to consider the debt separate, but it's not guaranteed.