Ok, I was married last year and am in the middle of a divorce. I go to file my 1040, and there’s a place for spouses SSN, and it says "if you are married filing separately, you must put your spouses SSN. I don’t know what it is and don’t have any way to get this information. I got a copy of my marriage license, since I dimly seemed to remember them asking for it, but it’s not on there. My divorce lawyer (who is not a tax lawyer) advised me to put zeroes in the space. This doesn’t seem like a good idea. I asked someone from H&R Block and she said she didn’t know, but didn’t think I should take the lawyers advice.
Any tax lawyers or people that have been in this situation here? It’s getting close to tax time and I’m getting nervous.
When you say you were you married last year do you mean that’s when the wedding took place? If you were married in 2007 or before, your wife’s SSN should be on previous year’s 1040s and the IRS should be able to tell you what it is.
Well what are your options here? Since you say you can’t get the info, you can’t get the info, so leaving it blank seems like the best thing to do. If you are using turbo tax or the like and it won’t let you leave it blank, then you could file on paper and leave it blank.
Call the IRS. They should be able to tell you how to handle it. I would suggest you call 2 or 3 times to make sure you get the same answer. Seriously.
BTW I find it very strange that your divorce is not yet final, yet your divorce lawyer didn’t say, “Well, let me just call your spouse’s lawyer and we’ll find out in a jiffy.” I would think the two lawyers would have to continue a dialog until the divorce is final.
Zeroes are generally used to indicate that a person does not have a Social Security number. Hospitals use them on intake forms for illegal patients and the like.
We were not married in 2007, there is no prior tax return to look at.
I don’t think she has a lawyer and she’s going with the “ignore everything that’s going on around me” strategy. It’s a long and bizarre story and I really don’t want to get into it here. I am not sure of all the terminology, but basically if the other party does not respond to a motion for divorce within 90 days, after a 2 year period they serve her with papers and it becomes a divorce whether she signs or not. I called the IRS and they said if you do not supply the spouses SSN you may incur a $50 penalty for failing to provide information. I asked if they would still process my return and they said yes. I just don’t want to leave it blank, file, then have it sent back to me saying they can’t process it without her SSN, then get in trouble for not filing a return. The person from the IRS said I might try calling the Social Security office, but she didn’t have any other suggestions.
The Social Security Administration won’t give out the SSN of a non-minor under any circumstances, even to a spouse, unless you’ve been granted power of attorney.
Yeah the SS office won’t give me the info. The IRS is of no help. I guess I will have to send it in blank with a note explaining I don’t have and can’t get the info, and hope I don’t get fined, or that it’s not too much if I do.
Probably, but time and money are an issue. I only have about 3 weeks to file. Lawyers are expensive, and I’d rather just pay a $50 fine to the IRS than $500 to my lawyer to play private detective.
The IRS wants to know her SSN so that they can match up your return to hers. If you file using the Married Filing Separately (MFS) status, they will make sure that she did the same. Without the SSN, they will have a more difficult time doing that.
Do you know that she is filing a MFS return or that she is filing a return at all? I’m guessing that you don’t. If she doesn’t file MFS and you do, you’ll both probably find letters from the IRS in your mailboxes within 18 months demanding that you get your stories straight.
Maybe I’m the mental-case here, but why not file as single? If your 2007 and earlier returns were filed as single, I don’t see why the IRS would take a second look at it.
The penalty for failure to file a return sets a very low bar for what qualifies as a "return,’ so I wouldn’t worry that they’ll reject the return and impose that penalty.
No. We don’t own anything jointly, including property, bank accts, etc.
I don’t know of any that have been in a similar situation, no.
My lawyer advised me not to do this.
That’s what I was told when I called the IRS, that they’d process the return, but I might get penalized. I don’t want to pay penalties unless there’s absolutely no other option. I’m poor, my car is falling apart, and have a shitty job, so I don’t have much cash to spare.
