The Motley Fool Discussion Boards

Previous Page

Financial Planning / Tax Strategies


Subject:  Re: Uncooperative, Signature Date:  3/29/2013  11:36 AM
Author:  Wradical Number:  118188 of 121061

File separately and let her clean up her own mess and file for herself. So what if it costs more?

Give her a deadline to sign Tell her what it will cost not to sign - and if she doesn't sign, then file separately. No payments to her for signing either way. No forging signatures (which is a federal crime).

The problem with that is that if she has no income, as stated,
1. She has no mess to clean up,
2. She has no requirement to file a return on a separate basis, nor can she be compelled to sign a joint return. A joint return is an election made by both spouses. And it's an irrevocable election, which is why you can amend returns to file jointly, but not amend to file separately if you'v already filed a joint return.

So the OP has relatively little leverage without being a hard@$$.
