Good Morning All,

I am in need of some sort of advice on a complex situation. My husband and I separated a few years ago and I filed for child support. Since then, we have gotten back together. We were never legally separated or divorced. We are still married and have 2 children. Our only 2. There are no other parties involved in our tax dilemma.

We were in the works of cancelling the child support and trying to meet the April 1st deadline we filed Married Jointly not thinking there would be any direct consequences. We received a refund and then a letter stating that he was arrears and most of the refund would be going to child support. So we assumed that it would just be placed on my child support card. The funds can be seen through child support but after much time and many calls we were told that the funds were being offset for 170 days because it was a joint return and gives an option for the "other" party to claim their share of the refund. (hypothetical example: If he were to be remarried or claim with someone else they would have the option of filing an injured spouse form) but there is no other person. The money would go to me regardless...through the refund...or the child support. We both went in person with a copy of the letter from the dept of treasury and photo ID's and told that would fix the problem and the funds would be released in about a week. 2 weeks go by and I call a supervisor of CSE who gave me a hundred reasons why I couldn't have the funds and said I needed to go back with my 1040 and file an injured spouse statement, not the form, the statement just says that I will not in the future claim myself as an injured spouse. I did that and I'm still waiting. I called the other day and they are saying that they can still hold the money for the 170 days. I do not know what to do and I am worried I won't ever see it. Also **NOTE** I worked last year but only part time and there were no federal taxes taken out because I made very little so that alone makes it to where I cannot file an injured spouse. If you have been in or heard of a similar situation could you please respond??? If I am leaving anything out that my be important just ask, so much has happened and been said over the past few months. Thank you.

If you file a joint tax return with your spouse and your spouse is liable for a legally enforceable past-due debt, your spouse's creditor may be able to claim a part or all of your joint tax refund. If you stand to lose part of a tax refund that you are entitled to because of your spouse's debts, you are considered an injured spouse by the IRS. According to the IRS website in order for you to qualify as an injured spouse you first must have filed a joint return with your spouse. Second, you must have reported taxable earnings that show you had income tax withheld during the tax year or paid estimate tax payments. If you worked last year but only part time and there were no federal taxes taken out in 2012, you CANNOT file an injured spouse form for 2012. You in effect were not injured, because you didn't have any taxes. An injured spouse will only recieve the portion of the return that is theirs. If the injured spouse had no income, no portion of the return is theirs, and therefore cannot use this form. If you don't have any income, filing the injured spouse form isn't going to do anything for you, since any refund would end up being allocated to your spouse anyway. If you are in a community property state, though, rules are different. If you live in a community property state and believe you are an injured spouse, please refer to IRS publication 555 in order to understand your rights. You can only file an injured spouse if you did work and had recordable income. You can also qualify if you were able to claim a tax refund credit including the child tax credit or an earned income credit.Additionally, you must not be legally responsible for any of the past due amount. The money owed must either be linked to your spouse from before you were married or be solely their responsibility. If you owe the debt jointly, you will not qualify for the injured spouse tax relief.I guess you need to contact the IRS for more accurate info in detail.