My husband has thousands of dollars in debt that I did not know about before we got married (just over a year ago). Now I find out and I am very stressed over this. I already pay for everything in this house, mortage, bills, you name it, I pay for it. And I’m trying to go to school right now, which is expensive in and of itself.
Yesterday I opened up a letter to him from the IRS, saying he owes X amount of money and I’m freaking out. That shit compounds every month that it doesn’t get paid and I’ll be damned if I go work my ass off to pay for his bullshit. But, if it is going to drag me down with him, what else can I do?
So, my main question is, is his previous debt now my debt? Because if it is, I am going to find out if I can get an annullment. There is no way I’m going to throw everything I’ve worked for in the garbage just because of his debt.
I’m not sure about your question, but is it a lot of money? I mean, a few thousand or in the 10s of thousands? Often the IRS will work out a payment plan that he can start working on and at least stop the interest and penalties from continuing. Has he called them to find out the scoop?
Yeah, he can schedule a repayment plan, and it cuts the interest rate in half, IIRC. He can specific his own monthly payment amount and the IRS entertains all serious offers.
As to your main question, IANAL, but I’d imagine it depends on your state law, I don’t know is debts are treated similarly to assets.
It’s enough that the interest is compounding at an alarming rate. Every month that he doesn’t pay (or even if he does), they tack on more and more money.
About seven years ago I filed bankruptcy and I am finally in a good place as far as those finances go. I no longer have untended debt and I’m very cautious about anything involving my credit. It scares me that his carelessness could affect me.
And yes, I did think about these things before we got married, but he left out a few very important details. He filed his bankruptcy a year or more before we got married, so I was aware that he wouldn’t have any credit for a long while, I didn’t think there was any other debt that I needed to worry about. And I probably didn’t probe too deeply into it because I just didn’t think about it. Now I’m wishing we could go back in time, for this, and other reasons.
Unless you cosigned loans for him or unless you own property in common, I think you would be safe but IANAL. I found myself in a jam with the IRS following my divorce; they were very cooperative in setting up a payment schedule. Did your husband deliberately conceal his debts from you prior to your marriage? Or did he just sort of ‘forget’ to mention them?
There is such a thing as an innocent spouse rule that you can claim, but his credit is going to be negatively impacted (and therefore any joint purchases will encounter a problem). If his name is on your house, there will be a lien placed on your home.
What’s more of a concern is the fact that his wages are likely to be garnished. Any bank account with his name (even joint ones) are also possibly going to be levied. Even though they aren’t supposed to, they might also go after your wages, since you’re married.
If he owes less than $10k, the IRS will generally put him on a payment plan. If it is more than $10k, they become a bit more strict. It also depends in what context he owes the money- did he not file tax returns and got IRS assessments made on his behalf? That’s bad. Did he file, but just not pay? That’s a much better place to be in.
I don’t know the specific answer to your question, and would agree with talking to a lawyer. In the meantime, though, you can try fielding some questions and doing some searches in the credit forum at www.creditboards.com. Some people can be a little harsh in their responses, but the place is a gold mine for info about how to deal with credit issues (which include, btw, how to rebuild credit after a bankruptcy). Best of luck to you.
A number of years ago I had started getting IRS assessments for several thousand dollars based on non-filed tax returns. Because the IRS assessments did not take into account legitimate deductions and business losses, I was actually due refunds for the years in question. (I hadn’t filed the returns because I was dealing with a number of personal issues, among them bad record-keeping and a sick spouse.) When I finally got the whole mess straightened out, which involved several visits to the IRS office, I got the refunds I was due and was never even charged any penalties because there was no tax debt involved.
The notices I was receiving kept adding more and more interest to the initially presumed tax owed. It’s possible that your husband may be in a similar situation.
Gosh, how lucky were you? I’m way into civil disobedience, but the IRS is one arm of the government I would never mess with. Their powers are amazing in a nauseating unconstitutional kind of way.
You don’t get to not file based on what’s going on in your life. That excuse apparently worked for you, but I guarantee everyone who is caught by the IRS for not filing has some “very good excuse” why they couldn’t. And I also guarantee that most of them don’t get away with their excuses, because they were legal required to file, period end of story.
The IRS, unfortunately, has ever right to charge penalties on top of interest on top of more penalties and interest, compounded every second until the end of time, and anything you own is forfeit to them in payment of that debt. They are some scary mothers, and like most people they normally abuse every bit of power they have.
The OP is in a difficult position, which no amount of false hope or recommendations to leave her husband is going to fix. Presumably the marriage is working for her on balance, because she’s still there. I was also in a situation once with a partner who was massively fiscally irresponsible, and you only ever find out about it the hard way because they try to hide it. The long term issue is certainly one of trust, but the short term issue here is financial in a big way.
So where were you in 2002 when I married a sociopath who told me that she owed around $6k before we got married, but after we were married it turned out to be over $30k? :dubious:
I gotta agree, no matter how hard it may be, that if the guy is in serious debt, you gotta run, don’t walk, for the nearest exit. I wish I had.
The innocent spouse rule has nothing to do with this matter. It’s about liability for returns filed during the marriage. http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=109283,00.html There is a procedure for protecting your portion of your tax refund from an offset (for your spouse’s back taxes, for example) called an Injured Spouse Claim: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f8379.pdf Since your spouse owes the IRS money, you might benefit from this procedure if you are filing jointly with your husband.
Best bet, as others have said is to talk to a lawyer. You can sometimes get a real lawyer who is licensed in your state to answer your question at http://www.lawguru.com/ The advice you are seeking should not cost very much; I’d still recommend meeting with a lawyer in person.
I care less about the past debt than about why he’s not contributing to the family income (and debts) at the current time. What’s up with that?
Anyway, my DH had an IRS debt when we got together. He accumulated this debt through a combination of poor planning, a failed business, and a messy divorce. By then, he had enough problems that he found it too easy to ignore them for a while.
No, I wasn’t thrilled to help pay off a sizable debt that I did not create, but I was more interested in getting the problem solved and moving on. One of my pettier concerns was how his ex would be benefitting from my hard work, but being a sensible person, realized that the issue had to be addressed anyway.
More important, though, was that DH was ready to face and solve the problem.
First, he made a payment plan with he IRS and then we paid large portions of the debt by having our income tax refunds withheld for several (4?) years.
BTW, we took special care to file our taxes as late as possible so his ex would have every opportunity to have her refund garnished, also. We never talked to her but heard of her complaints through the grapevine.
I’ve had DH now for 15-17 years and we still occasionally get some kind of contact about that time in his life (because he was young and made a lot of financial mistakes) such as a letter from one of those ‘old debt collection agencies’. I posted one of my letters to a collection agency here recently.
If your DH is grown up enough at this time to deal with his problems, and you feel like overall it would be worth it, you could certainly knock that debt out pretty painlessly. Since you are newly married, this is a good time to find out how he handles serious problems and if that’s the kind of guy you want to hang with for many years to come.
