Ok....I am not sure what to do here ....

My wife and I did our taxes for last year. We are getting back a decent amount of money. She wants to split it 50/50.

I want to only give her half, minus the amount of months she was gone (only a few).

She also made about $6,000. less than me ..

We talked about it the other night and I told her what I wanted to give her. She got angry and hung up on me.

Am I just mad and trying to get back at her?

Should I give in and give her half if the amount of the money really isn't that important to me?

She has no intention of coming back, but I still want to make this work...

Should I back off or does standing up for this make me better in her eyes ??

What to do.........

Don't split the refund, split the tax obligation.

She may not have had as much withheld as you

So figure out each of your income percentages.

HI%
WI%

multiply that percentage by the total tax obligation.

subtract her withholding from her percentage of tax obligation. If the difference is positive, that's her fair share based on income and taxes withheld.

If the number is negative, ask her for the difference, you paid some of her taxes, etc.

Let me throw some example numbers in there to show you how the math works

HI = $60000
HW = $9000
WI = $40000
WW = $6000

Tax Liability $13000
Tax Refund $2000

So husband made 60% and wife made 40%

60% of $13000 is $7800
40% of $13000 is $5200

So W would get $800 of the refund and husband would get $1200 in my income percentage example.

When my ex-wife left, we had our paychecks arranged so she had ZERO federal taxes withheld. I made sure her check was her grocery and mad money and I paid all the taxes.

So I did not feel obligated to give her any tax refund money.

Of course, I'm divorced, so letting her face the hard realities of life without my income didn't work out so well for me.

HTH,

T

I agree split the refund in proportion to the amout of tax withholdings. If wife had 40 % of total tax withholdings then she should receive 40% of the refund.

Just to be nitpicky, I was saying each pays the tax liability in proportion to their income.

So a persons refund becomes:

%portion of tax liability - withholding equals refund.

If I didn't say it that way, I think my math works out that way.

T