I e-filed my Federal and State returns with turbo tax this year. I filed jointly with my wife, (who was divorced in 08). I was expecting about $2100 from federal and $510 from state. I had it direct deposited into my checking account. About 10 days later I get a deposit for about $1400 from federal, nothing from state.
Ok, weird, maybe they are doing multiple deposits. Nothing for a few days. I check online with wheresmyrefund.com, and it says part of my refund may have been taken to pay a past state tax debt, or pay past child support. I dont have a kid, and I always pay my taxes, so I have no idea whats going on. I call, and after talking to 4 different people they find out that my wife’s ex has owed $672 to the state for over 2 years, for a union pension of $6000 he received, but never claimed. They had already paid the federal dues, but never paid the state portion. He also has not filed taxes for 08 or 09. So, since I foolishly filed jointly, her SSN must have been tagged, and even though she only made $4k, they took it from my refund. The federal government has a lovely program where they will hold part of a return to pay a state tax debt. Thus the $1400 return, that I did receive. However, this takes 3-6 weeks to process, and forward to the state. So I also did not get the $510 state refund. And was told that the other ~$160 was going to collections.
Wait, heres where it gets good. So last week, my wife hands me a check for $513 made to her, from her ex. I’m like, WTF is this for?
They issued HIM the refund check, after taking the money from MY tax refund!
WTF! I’m still owed the $670 they took from federal, but my wife had to file some innocent spouse forms, and were waiting for them to process those. I love how I get to involuntarily loan money to the moron who hasnt filed taxes in 2 years.
This girl I work with had the IRS screw her shit up too, last year.
Her and her husband are separated, they have been for soooo long. She has 2 kids with him. He doesn’t pay A DIME. So when the stimulus check came last year, they agreed that she would get the whole thing, since he doesn’t contribute anything to his daughter’s lives. Since it had both his and her name on it, they were going to make a date to meet up and sign it together and get it cashed.
He kept postponing the day that they were going to sign it, because… he’s a sneaky mother fucker. He called the IRS, telling them that he never received the check. Since their databases showed that it wasn’t cashed yet, they sent him ANOTHER ONE. (Mind you, this is for like $1400, or whatever.) So, now my co-worker has the original check in her possession, and he has the other one. So after he gets the duplicate check, he calls up my co-worker and says ok let’s meet up or whatever. So after they cash it, he takes his other check, goes to Walmart with his scummy girlfriend, she forges my co-workers signature, Walmart doesn’t question it, and cashes that check.
Now the IRS is telling my co-worker that she owes them that money back. Fuck that.
It all makes sense to me except the part that the $510 refund went to him.
The debt THEY owed was from when THEY were together and filing jointly. Just because they split after the debt does not remove her from that debt. When you married her and decided to become joint filers you inherited all her previous tax messes.
Yeah, I know it was my fault for filing jointly. But I should have gotten the check. And I was irritated that it taked so long for federal to transfer money to state. I’m more pissed at her ex because he had his wages garnished earlier this year for this tax debt, and lied to the contractor and said he paid it when he didn’t.
It sounds like a MFS filing status would have been a better option here. Sounds like she could claim the children per your brief description as well. Would have avoided the 1 check with 2 names problem and sounds like she may have had a decent refund based soley on credits. She won’t make that mistake again though.