You also have to decide if you want to stay married: IANAL, but I suspect a technical annulment will be meaningless one way or the other if you continue to live with him as his wife–that sort of legal fiction works well in movies but the law actually is set up to deal with that sort of thing.
And even if you don’t want to disclose the numbers involved, the % of his annual income represented by the debt would help get a handle on the magnitude of the thing.
I believe you are only legally required to file if you owe taxes.
The debt is from when he sold the house he lived in before he moved to my side of town. He had trouble selling it and took a loss. I know he owed some to the IRS, but it wasn’t that much. But if you don’t pay for it, it will keep growing. He doesn’t want to face that fact.
He’s not a deadbeat. He works, but he’s also chronically ill and only working as a contract employee until his company hires him on full-time. The problem is that since I make sooo much more than him he thinks I should pay for everything. He’ll buy groceries, and he does take care of my daughter a lot, but other than that he doesn’t do much financially.
Before we got married he was paying half of everything and contributing evenly. But, a lot has changed since then.
I’m seriously going to call his dad and tell him what’s up. My family has helped me enough, and I wouldn’t even think of asking them to pay this.
I’m not an accountant, and probably wouldn’t post this if it was in GQ instead of IMHO.
I believe that you are technically correct, but if you read LurkMeister’s post again, you’ll see that he was really due a return instead of owing one. The IRS takes a different attitude toward people whom they owe money to as opposed to those who owe them money. I can’t recall the specifics, but I remember this coming up in politics some time ago. Some pol was accused of consistently filing taxes late, but it was clarified that he was owed money rather than owing money. Some expert in the newspaper article said that it was technically a violation, but without money owed there was no penalty or interest, so no one really pays much attention to it. Just don’t expect the IRS to pay you the same interest rate that they would ask you to pay. 
You’re requied to file if you make over a certain amount in a given year, and in various other situations, whether or not you owe taxes.
I will do whatever the IRS - or the DEA - require of me. To do otherwise is madness.
I was with you until you said you’re going to tell his parents on him. Are you both adults? Why should anyone else bail him out of this?
Are these the same in-laws you were quite…blunt to about religion not so long ago? Am I mis-remembering? 
Good luck with that, if so. 
To continue the slight hijack, I was concerned about possible penalties even though I was pretty sure I was due a refund. For several years before that I had been getting extensions even though I knew I was due a refund just because my records were so poorly organized that I never had the information I needed to file my return on time. It was one of those situations that just kept feeding on itself; I was getting so stressed over my problems that I kept putting off dealing with them.
One interesting thing: one of the years I filed late was the year they had the “tax rebate” and when I filed the return for that year I got a notice that I was due more of a refund than I had filed for.
And believe me, I am much more careful with my records now. It does help that my finances are a lot less complex now than they were then, although I did get some capital gains payouts last month that I wasn’t expecting, which may mean that I’ll have a tax bill instead of a refund. But I will be filing my return on time this year.
Sweetie, you have to quit running to your parents or his parents every time you hit a bump in the road. I don’t know if you’re going to hit them up for money or just bring them up to speed, but some stuff is none of their business.
I’m a bit confused about your finances. You make more than your husband, but all he does is buy groceries. Is that all he is able to contribute, or all he is willing to contribute?
If it’s the first, then you need a lawyer to get this IRS thing straightened out. If it’s the second, then you need to have a serious sit-down with your husband. Just because you make more than him does not mean he can use his paycheck as play money.
You need to see a lawyer and/or financial consultant. Getting advice from a message board is not the place to start with a debt so large it has you considering annulling your marriage.
What does his dad have to do with it?
And “I already pay for everything in this house, mortage, bills, you name it, I pay for it.”- that’s an even worse sign.
Indygrrl- why the hell do you pay “for everything” anyway?
Bankruptcy generally does not discharge debt to the IRS. So that’s why he still owes. The IRS will take the refund from your Joint Tax Return. But if he still owes on the home sale debt, something is wrong there.
Talk to a lawyer.
Perhaps it’s just me thinking this is odd, but you open your husband’s mail? I would be stunned if my husband opened anything that came addressed to me. I’d be absolutely horrified if my spouse started opening my mail and then calling my parent about it!
Hire someone to stand between you and the IRS and negotiate. It’s a specialized skill, and there are people who have it. The IRS doesn’t want blood and it doesn’t want your body. All it wants is money, and it’s immortal so it can be patient. Demonstrate an income and even a grudging willingness to pay, and you can reach an agreement with them.
You didn’t mention creditors other than the IRS here. Consider that there may be some. Good luck.
OK there is is finace woman on TV, who’s name I forget now but she give this adivce and it seems perfect for you.
You and hubby need 3 bank accounts. One for you, one for him and one for the house.
You don’t do the house 50/50. What you do is you take your total joing income and figure out what percentage each of you make of the total. For example, lets just say, to keep it easy that the two of you together make 100 dollars a month. You make 75 dollars and he makes 25. So you pay for 75% of the household bills and he pays 25%. So whatever your housepayment is, you pay 75% he pays 25%, electric bill, groceries, what ever is ‘joint’ you divide up that way. Then he takes his money and pays off the IRS with that. Your money pays for you. Your school, ect.
The idea of “his money” and “her money” in a marriage would scare the living crap out of me. In my marriage, we have “our money”. We both decide how it gets spent, saved, or donated. Obviously I don’t call her for every purchase, but neither one of us will buy anything if it is over a certain, pre-determined amount.
And obviously you two are more responsible with money than the OP’s husband is.
I have no intention of ever getting married, and this post demonstrates why. I can’t blame you, LD, I’m sure most of the married world shares your views. But holy crap, WHY do people decide when they get married, that suddenly all that exists is ‘our money’? :smack: :smack: :smack:
My sister and dad are currently in marriages with this communal-money attitude. For sis, she’s the mug, and for my dad, his wife’s the mug. All four parties involved are in poor financial situations. Stupid bastards.
This is exactly how we do things in my house, and it works like an absolute dream. I earn more than her, so I still treat her to drinks, dinners (and most groceries), but I am buying them with my money, voluntarily. She can go out and buy cosmetics and shoes or whatever it is that women like to pamper their fluffy little egos with*, and pay off her own credit cards, and it causes no friction at all, because it’s her money she’s spending, and all our utilities and mortgage have already been taken care of at the start of every month.
*Joke
That sounds like a great way for roommates to do the finances, but it sets my teeth on edge when held up as a great way to arrange finances within a marriage. I think in a marriage, if the partners don’t feel comfortable having one joint account for everything, it’s an indicator that trust is fundamentally lacking. The goal of a marriage should be trust and transparency, not making sure you don’t spend more than you “should.”