How do divorcees amend from a previous year?

[pajoan]

Clients filed with Turbo Taz in '09, made some serous errors and need to amend and will now owe about $3000.00. Right now they are going through a nasty divorce. Wife wants to file to correct the error, husband does not because he doesn't want to pay more taxes.

If he refuses to sign the amend, does she have any other options?

[Pacun]

No.

She can, however, file injured spouse or something like that. She can ask the court to order husband and wife to amend and pay the debt before splitting the wealth.

[pajoan]

Thanks, That's pretty much where I was going.

[kcjenkins]

It's not specifically mentioned anywhere, so I am not 'advising' this, just sharing experience. I had a client in that same situation several years ago, who came to me after the divorce and asked me about amending the prior years, bacause on reason for the divorce was finding out about some illegal income the husband had concealed from her. While there was no way she could get him to sign anything, she was worried about not reporting it, for a year they had filed jointly.

We ended up preparing a 1040X, reporting the amount she knew about, explaining in detail the why and how of her learning about this, and that she had no way of knowing if that was all of it. We included an Innocent Spouse form for her, as well. Showing that she was not responsible for any more than what she had already paid. She had, in fact, paid almost all of the joint liability on the original return, a good bit more than she would have owed on just her share. She signed it, put "Refused to sign" in the box for his signature, and sent it off. She said at least that way she could sleep again without waking from a nightmare of the IRS breaking down her door.

She got a letter from the IRS saying that they would look into it, and she never heard anything more from them. But she 'heard through the grapevine' that the ex got audited and hit with a major tax bill. No way to confirm that, although I hope it was true.

[pajoan]

[

She got a letter from the IRS saying that they would look into it, and she never heard anything more from them. But she 'heard through the grapevine' that the ex got audited and hit with a major tax bill. No way to confirm that, although I hope it was true.