I received the following e-mail from a lucky bride to be who had a question about her future husband’s IRS tax debt.
I am engaged to a man that is deeply in debt to the IRS. Currently, he has no property in his name that the government can take. If I marry him, and change my name to his, can the IRS seize my property and income to satisfy his debt?
When you marry someone and you’re saying your wedding vows, there’s that one little line about “for better or worse”. Well if you marry someone with an existing IRS tax debt, that’s what “or worse” means.
Marrying someone who already has an IRS tax debt also means that you’re marrying their tax debt too. You are just as responsible for paying back that debt as your new spouse.
The woman who sent me the e-mail asked if the IRS can seize her income or property and the answer would be yes! But the IRS-Hitman wants to help these love birds, so let me tell you some tips that may help them.
This man of hers needs to get his debt settled or under control before they’re married. Now she tells me that he doesn’t have any property of his own for them to seize, and even though I haven’t gotten the specifics of the rest of his financial situation he may be eligible for an Offer in Compromise where the IRS will settle the debt for a single lesser payment.
Now an Offer in Compromise is very difficult to get, and you have to prove to the IRS that your income and assets are not significant enough to ever pay the debt off. For specific information on an Offer in Compromise read my article “Settle Your IRS Tax Debt for Pennies on the Dollar”.
What about our soon to be blushing bride? Is there anything she can do to avoid having to take on this IRS debt? There is a solution called Innocent Spouse, but it doesn’t normally apply to newlyweds, especially when the spouse to be already knows about the debt. But I’m going to list the requirements for Innocent Spouse because I know some of you out there may be able to use it to solve your IRS debt brought on by a loving spouse.
- The taxes owed have to be theirs. That means if you filed jointly, you owe it. The consolation is that they do too.
- You can prove you were unaware of the debt, thought your spouse was going to pay, or were unaware of items changed in an audit.
- The debt would cause you hardship. This means you couldn’t afford to pay basic living expenses like food and utilities.
- You suffered abuse in the relationship.
Luckily this woman knew about the debt, and was able to get information that can help her deal with the situation she’s in. However there are millions of marriage where a spouse finds out only too late that they now have a debt due.
Now she has the smoking gun…and so do you.