Occasionally, when filing a joint tax return, one spouse may incur penalties, either by misreporting or omitting items on the return. In the event that this occurs, the innocent spouse may suffer from automatic deductions from his/her tax return, as well.

To prevent an innocent spouse from suffering unfairly for their spouse’s mistake, IRS tax relief may be granted, by way of relieving the taxpayer of responsibility for any interest, penalties, or taxes accrued by their spouse. Innocent Spouse Relief will be granted if: (1) a joint tax return was filed that included erroneous info pertaining to the taxpayer’s spouse; (2) It can be proven that when the innocent spouse signed the return, he/she was unaware of any error; and, (3) It is determined by the IRS that holding the non-liable party responsible would be unfair.

It should be noted that a spouse can be determined as liable without having been aware of the error, provided the IRS determines he/she had reason to be aware of it. If the latter is the case, then both liable and non-liable parties will be held responsible for the tax debt.

Some guidelines the IRS uses to evaluate whether a spouse qualifies for IRS tax relief are: (1) The type and scope of the error; (2) the financial aspects of the case; (3) Education and professional experience; (4) Amount of participation with portion of return containing error; (5) Failure to question dubious items or omissions on the return before signing; (6) Repetition of similar, previous mistakes (history); (7) The benefit, if any, received from error, either direct or indirect, from the tax return or otherwise; (8) Desertion by spouse.

Being divorced or separated from the liable spouse does not automatically qualify the non-liable spouse for irs tax relief; the non-liable will still need to present a case for lack of knowledge or reason to be aware of the error.