So turbo tax dropped my injured spouse allocation that I sent and now I have to send one in the mail and hope they reverse the payment. My husband is the injured spouse but, I do the filing of the form for him. I was reading the instructions and I am not sure if I have been filling it out correctly. So my husband has all the income and he is the injured spouse. Per the begining instructions (and what a lady at jackson hewitt told me to do) it says to fill it out as if it were seperate income taxes. Which would put all income being allocated to my husband as he is the only one working but as I go down further because I live in a community property state it says fifty fifty. However it doesn't specifically state to adjust it myself so do they do as they had done before for me. Or was I filling it out wrong? Should I allocate 50% to myself or do it as if seperate and the adjust the fifty percent?

So turbo tax dropped my injured spouse allocation that I sent and now I have to send one in the mail and hope they reverse the payment. =======>> You can wait until after you file your regular tax return, and then the IRS will inform you of the offset. Then, you, in general, can file it with your regular tax return / later, after you receive notice. So electronic option is ALSO available to you. If you file the form in paper along with your tax return then you need to write Injured Spouse on the top left of your Form 104;. this way the IRS will know to process the application before an offset happens.However, Since you file the form alone, then you must make sure both spouses SSN# are on the form in the same order they were listed on your tax returns. Your spouse, as an injured spouse, has to sign the form. You may file your taxes the way you normally would and wait to hear back from the IRS. If you file Form 8379 with a joint return electronically, the time needed to process it is about 11 weeks; Form 8379 with a joint return on paper, the time needed is about 14 weeks; Form 8379 by itself after a joint return has already been processed, the time needed is about 8 weeks.

There are different rules for each state so it is important to understand how your state handles injured spouses. As said, IRS Form 8379 is for federal returns only. You will need to check and see if your state has something similar for state returns and, if so, what the process is. You need to check it with the Department of Revenue of your home state. When there has been an offset of a state tax refund, the agency that placed the offset sends you a letter explaining the offset circumstances. The letter explains what in Injured Spouse must do to claim their portion of any offset joint refund.



My husband is the injured spouse but, I do the filing of the form for him. I was reading the instructions and I am not sure if I have been filling it out correctly. So my husband has all the income and he is the injured spouse. Per the begining instructions (and what a lady at jackson hewitt told me to do) it says to fill it out as if it were seperate income taxes.=========>> Since you are married, you can file a joint tax return with your spouse even if only he had income. There is nothing in the tax rules requiring that a husband and wife both have income in order to file jointly. An injured spouse is a taxpayer who files a joint return and all / part of the portion of the joint overpayment /refund is, or expected to be, applied against legally enforceable past obligation of the other spouse. Normally, it is better to file joint return. You can file Form 8379 with your joint tax return. By filing Form 8379, the injured spouse may can get back his share of the refund.So, you need to file Form 8379; if the injured spouse is not required to pay the past-due amount; the injured spouse reported income such as wages, taxable, interest, etc., on the joint return, and ; the injured spouse made payments such as federal income tax withheld or estimated payments, or etc.


Per the begining instructions (and what a lady at jackson hewitt told me to do) it says to fill it out as if it were seperate income Which would put all income being allocated to my husband as he is the only one working but as I go down further because I live in a community property state it says fifty fifty. However it doesn't specifically state to adjust it myself so do they do as they had done before for me. Or was I filling it out wrong?========>> I guess it depends. Because you are in a community property state half the expenses and half the income is divided equally between husband and wife. You are not better off filing separately(however it depends) because it would be as if you filed single. Married filing joint has the best tax relief, besides head of household. There is no harm on trying both filing status ,not mailing them in until you see the benefit of one over the other, so you can see the benefit of one over the other. I'm sure you will see that Married filing joint is the best. However, if you filed jointly, would the two of you get any EITC? If there's NO EITC, you can ALSO file separately . You follow the community pty state rules and report half the income on your return, half the withholding, etc and you essentially get half the refund after . So aslongas there is EIC and you worked, you file MFJ and attach a form 8379. The IRS will allocate you 50% of the refund coming from withholding. But 100% of the income is your spouse, then your spouse gets all of the EIC since you did not work and had no earned income but yur spouse had/did.. Since most of the income is his, he gets all of the EIC, etc. Since you didn't work, you get none of the EIC.




Should I allocate 50% to myself or do it as if seperate and the adjust the fifty percent===========>>As mentioned above.As you live in a community property state, special rules apply. Community property states means states that have elected to pool both spouses resources together as 'community property.'For the purposes of an offset even if you are not the injured party your return will be offset to satisfy the debt even if you are supplying the sole income. You can file a form 8379 and have half the community income allocated back to you.but each community state is different, CA for the purposes of satisfying an offset will take 100% of the community refund to satisfy the debt even if you file an 8379. Texas either takes 50%, 75%, or 100% of the refund to satisfy the debt or etc.