Not So Innocent.
I have a couple of Innocent Spouse claims on my desk right now. IS claims are filed when there are tax obligations on joint tax returns and one spouse claims that, for whatever reason, he or she should not be liable for the total tax due. In the majority of cases, these claims boil down to which spouse can tell a better version of their story - the he said, she said dilemma. They can be kind of tricky to prove because, let’s face it, most people don’t spend a lot of time documenting the ins and outs of their relationships.
Over the course of a number of months now, I’ve been requesting information to prove allegations and asking the same kinds of questions over and over. One of my clients mentioned to me that she had never really asked her spouse hard questions about any of the finances because in their marriage, there was a division of labor that they more or less followed. In the division, her husband managed the finances including filing the tax returns and she never had real cause to question it - or the guts to ask him to prove anything to her because she both trusted and feared him.
So, this has been on my mind a lot these days. It’s easy to be smug when these cases walk through the door, and wonder how a marriage could crumble to the point that there was no communication, but it has dawned on me that this is how most marriages that I know work: household chores and obligations are divided. And in this busy life that we lead, we rarely stop to ask questions. In my house, for example, while I manage the finances at the office (remember, Chris and I manage a law firm together), Chris takes care of money at the house. I take for granted that the bills will be paid, that the proper paperwork is filed, that he has not secretly transferred ownership of the house. That takes a lot of trust. Or is it willful avoidance? You see, IRS would argue the latter. And on paper, it kind of sounds that way. I’ve thought about the argument that I would make if something catastrophic happened with respect to our finances - and it’s a bad one. How can I, educated woman that I am, argue that I just didn’t know? And there I go sounding smug again.
I know, at the end of the day, that a good relationship is built on trust. We trust each other to do the right things - to not cheat, to not lie, to not lead us down the wrong road. But where is our personal responsibility in these matters? I don’t purport to know. I know where IRS thinks it is. And yet, I can tell you, that no matter how many of these cases wander through my door, I doubt very much it will force me to change the way that I live my life. That’s the craziness of it all.