Tampa tax attorney Darrin T Mish explains three types of IRS innocent spouse status. This video discusses how you can obtain innocent spouse status, highlighting your options for distancing yourself from your spouse’s IRS problems.

A separate-liability-election allows you to split the liability between spouses. Taxes attributable to one spouse can be excluded from the amounts owed by the other spouse where certain conditions are met.  To file an election to separate the tax debt, you must generally meet the following qualifications:

  1. A joint tax return must have been filed;
  2. There must have been an understatement of tax on the tax return;
  3. You must have been legally separated or no longer married to the spouse you filed the joint return with;
  4. You cannot be a member of the same household as the guilty spouse within one year of filing the joint return