IRS kept husband's refund

[Pam Ernst]

My husband and I have been married since 2012. I have a tax debt from 2009 that I have had on hold for being unemployed all these years. We have been filing Injured Spouse form successfully every year and he got his entire refund. We did the same for 2017, but just found out that they applied his entire refund to my back tax debt. We live on his Postal pension and a small income on an internet business. Nothing significantly has changed in his income and I technically have none. I went on TurboTax to make sure the Injured Spouse form had been included and it was there. What should we do? Has anyone else been having this happen this year? We needed that money for medical bills.

[Kim]

We originally filed in Jan. IRS kept our refund for my student loans. Entire refund was my husband’s. Sent in the IS claim separately the 3rd week of Feb. End of March I called to check on it and was told nothing was in their system showing it was received. they said to send it in again certified mail. So we did. Called a month later and were were told they still didn’t show anything in their system. Where’s my amended return option online updated that something was received on March,7. Called again and we were told it was in processing and should be done in 2 weeks. That was June. Then we got a letter saying they had our claim and it was being worked on but they needed another 60 days. I FINALLY got a 30 day referral after I called on July17. Here we are in August and STILL nothing has even been updated on my transcript. If I call to see if anything has been updated, I’m told a referral was sent and there is no further info at this time. WTH?????? I am getting so frustrated!!

[guy here to help]

You have two choices:

1. Wait. They probably have your form and are currently processing it. If it has been over 8 weeks you can call the irs to check the status but if it still being processed then it’s just a waiting game. You can also request to speak to the injured spouse line.

2. Get a taxpayer advocate to help speed up the process but to qualify you need to have a hardship which is typically qualified as facing eviction, past due utilities, etc. be advised that medical bills might not count.

3. File a hardship packet with the department of education but once again, hardship is defined as eviction, utilities, etc. And they are behind so that can take 60 to 90 days or more

Hope this helps and yes I know I gave you 3 not 2 lol

[Author]

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