The Internal Revenue Service recently proposed new guidelines aimed at providing tax relief for more innocent spouses who request equitable relief from their income tax liability. A Forbes article entitled IRS Lowers The Bar For Innocent Spouse Relief, details how the new proposals address the criteria used in making innocent spouse relief determinations in equitable relief cases and adjust the factors used in granting equitable relief.
Since 2003, the Internal Revenue
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This month I came across a couple of interesting articles from my StumbleUpon I wanted to share with you. Here is a recap of tax news covering topics on all things tax, from news on Innocent Spouse relief, giving to charity, tax scams and more celebrities tax problems.
IRS does ‘the right thing’ for the ‘innocent spouse’ – Michelle Singletary discusses the IRS and their decision to remove the two-year limitation
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I came across an article called Individual Taxation: Digest of Recent Developments that summarizes recent changes and developments on individual taxation. The article goes into a good amount of detail to outline both last and this year’s tax regulation changes that will affect individual consumers. I highlighted some “best of’s” from the individual taxation article below. It is important to keep informed on tax law changes as most of these changes in taxation
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Effective immediately the IRS will be allowing tax relief to the innocent spouses of those with serious IRS tax problems and back taxes. The new rules will help protect partners, especially those from abusive relationships, by granting relief to those who could have been deemed liable for a spouse’s tax problems. The Wall Street Journal’s Laura Saunders explains how the new rules differ from the original rule of a 2
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Sometimes when a person is guilty of tax evasion, the IRS may assume their spouse (or ex-spouse) is also guilty through association.  In certain cases, the IRS has found that some spouses truly are innocent of their partner’s actions.  For this reason, the IRS set up the Innocent Spouse Claim program whereby a spouse may not be held responsible to pay the IRS back, but that is only if they
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An article I just wrote about, Innocent Spouse Relief highlights a couple’s need for better understanding that after saying the “I dos” for better or for worse, each spouse inherits the other’s tax history. Should the marital bliss fade, the couple’s tax liability will not.
The reason for this is simple: the IRS views couples as individuals and holds both taxpayers responsible, commonly referred to as “joint and severally liable”. This means
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In some cases of tax evasion where a couple is involved, one person in the couple may qualify for Innocent Spouse tax relief.  That’s when one person of the couple has no idea that the spouse (or ex-spouse) is scamming the IRS.  Qualifying for Innocent Spouse relief means that the innocent party will not be liable to pay back the taxes, interest or penalties incurred by the guilty spouse.  As
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Today’s Tax Resolution Tip:
Tax rules regarding spouses are changing. Check out the article, A New Push To Protect Spouses recently posted on the Wall Street Journal. The rules for protecting spouses from their partner’s tax wrong doings do not always work. At the moment, both Congress and the IRS are rethinking them. If you’re a spouse, make sure you’re in the loop! You need to be aware of your rights.
For
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The IRS does gives people breaks – here and there.  One IRS break that some people are not aware of is tax relief for spouses who are being subjected to IRS problems because of their spouse’s (or ex-spouse’s) actions.  It is appropriately called “Innocent Spouse” tax relief and, if a person qualifies and meets IRS guidelines, they will not be responsible for the tax problems of their spouse.  Of course, this does not apply to
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Did your spouse, or ex-spouse, evade taxes without your knowledge?  If, all of sudden,  you find yourself entangled in a tax evasion case with the IRS due to your spouse’s irresponsible decisions and/or actions, and you are innocent, you may be able to secure tax relief for yourself under the IRS’s Innocent Spouse program.  The tax case below (although we are not sure if the spouse was innocent or not)
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Tax relief can sometimes come to spouses (or ex-spouses) of those who are very guilty of a tax crime and may be facing a large punishment such as prison and a fine.  This is called Innocent Spouse tax relief and is available for those who honestly had no idea about their spouse’s financial situation.  If you are interested in applying for an Innocent Spouse claim, seek expert tax representation to help
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One person in a couple may find themselves in trouble with the IRS because of the actions of their spouse (or ex-spouse) even though they are innocent.  The IRS recognizes that this may be a possibility and has set up an “Innocent Spouse Claim” for those who had no idea that their spouse was guilty of tax manipulation.  The spouse must cooperate with the IRS and go through a qualification
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Sometimes we have clients come in who are only guilty of a tax crime  because they happened to be married to a person who was willfully cheating on their taxes.  This is not a good situation to be in!  Often they desperately ask why they should bear part of the burden, such as the hefty fines and/or prison time, because they truly did not know their spouse was acting in
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As the economy begins to slowly rebound, there are some 26 million Americans plagued with tax problems including audit or collection-related issues. And with the IRS collection efforts on the rise supported by a record enforcement budget of $5.5 billion, Americans need to know their rights and options for tax relief.
While taxpayers may always represent themselves in front of the IRS, many turn to professional tax help (a specialized tax
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If you find yourself nervous after reading all the tax relief scam stories on the news lately, you’re not alone. After all, how can you know who to trust to solve your IRS tax problems for good?
One of the best indicators of a tax relief firm’s competence is their tax debt settlement success rate. And here’s where the taxpayer needs to be extra careful–many tax relief firms will overstate their
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