Accepted Answer

Hello,
Thanks for your question. Has any of the following happened yet?

• The IRS is examining your tax return and proposing to increase your tax liability.

• The IRS sends you a notice.

• The IRS offset your income tax refund against an amount you owed on a joint return for another year and the IRS informed you about your right to file Form 8857.

• The filing of a claim by the IRS in a court proceeding in which you were a party or the filing of a claim in a proceeding that involves your property. This includes the filing of a proof of claim in a bankruptcy proceeding.

• The filing of a suit by the United States against you to collect the joint liability.

• The issuance of a section 6330 notice, which notifies you of the IRS' intent to levy and your right to a collection due process (CDP) hearing. The collection-related notices include, but are not limited to, Letter 11 and Letter 1058.

If so, you need to file the Form 8857 as soon as possible. If he is already being audited, you don't need to report him. You can just tell the IRS agent directly since you will contacted if you filed a joint return.

If the IRS is not looking into matters yet, you should report him as soon as possible. It may preserve your innocent spouse position later on if he gets audited. Innocent spouse rules state that a spouse is innocent if she had no reason to know about the other spouse's erroneous tax reporting. See IRS Pub. 971 for more information http://www.irs.gov/publications/p971/index.html

For information on reporting tax fraud to the IRS whistleblower's office, see http://www.irs.gov/compliance/article/0,,id=180171,00.html You may even qualify for an informant's award, although since you are in effect reporting yourself since you filed a joint return, they may not want to give you an award.

Hope this helps,
Sincerely,

Expert:	JK_CPA
Pos. Feedback:	100.0 %
Accepts:
Answered:	10/20/2009

Certified Public Accountant (CPA)

with 5 years accounting experience and 18 years tax experience.