Brokenwings,
with love flowerseed<p>[ March 18, 2002: Message edited by: flowerseed ]</p>

The laws do stink. If I were in your shoes, I would file for divorce/or separation from H. Even though you and H are together, who would know? At least then, you would get child-support first, and OW's would be reduced. The children of the marriage always come first. You and H never have to get divorced. Who would know the better for it? ember

Dear Flowerseed,<P>Few questions....I got the gist of who they are, but what does foc stand for? You will have to excuse me I am in a bit of overload of the brain...all I have been doing is studying. Do you work also? You have your own business and it is in your name..other than that he has unemployment....am I straight on this? First I would have the cs reduced. If he is now unemployed, then it should be adjusted for that. You have a few options really, but they will effect how you file for the rest of your tax paying years. At least for quite a few. Which I am sure you care not about as long as the hussy doesnt take all your $.<P>You are right about filing for injured spouse..it usually matters not. Now my understanding on when you owe any federal $, whether it be student loans, cs, back taxes, or a federal bank is that say you owe 1000$ and you get back 1200, they take their 1000$ and you get 200$ a few months later. They can not take more than you owe. Are you still behind? You can call the IRS and find out if they have you flagged as owing..they should be able to tell you the amount also. If they are taking more than you owe than someone is screwing up somewhere.<P>If you do owe more there is not much you can do if you file married joint, which is what I am assuming you did last year. I usually do not advise married serperate bc you get screwed every which way, but in this case it is a little different. You could file married but seperate. You have a lower standard deduction (do you itemize?) and you dont get any extra tax breaks. Now if you itemized last year it might not be advisable bc if your file married/seperate and one itemizes the other must also. In this way though your incomes would be seperated and they then should only touch his income in respect to what they think he owes. If you are up to date on the payments then they shouldnt be taking jack. I just would say to think about this bc you will be putting up a red flag say if you file like this this year and then next year you are filing joint again. It could be a reason for an audit. You would continue to file like this or both file single for a few years. Single might even be a better way to file. You dont need to prove it to them. Either of these ways they wouldnt be able to touch your portion of the income. You might have to sit down on paper and do it all three ways and find what works best. If you need any help with it you can call on me if youd like.<P>On Monday I go back to start classes. We have to take the class every year to get our raise. I will bring up the tax situation and see if any one else has any better or alternate ideas.<P>The federal govt can always be a pain in the whazoo about it though. There was a woman last year who had been divorced something like 5 years and her refund was taken to pay her xh's student loan. Can you believe that?! She had to fight them to get it back too. It can get totally ridiculous.<P>Hope this helped at least a little...<P>Love and Prayers<P>bw<p>[This message has been edited by broken_wings (edited September 08, 2001).]

Flowerseed,<P><BR>Hey there...I am chatting with my old boss right now about your situation and she reccomends married filing seperate. She said if all ow would have to do is anonymously tip off the IRS that you are married if you filed single that would not be a good thing. She says to file mfs and you dont have to worry about seperate address. Filing in such a way just means that neither parties want to be held liable for the other's return. That should probably be your best bet.<P>Love<BR>bw<BR>

Brokenwings, foc is friend of the court,So you think it would be all right to file seperate? Do we have to say we live apart? last yr was the first yr we every filed joint. The yrs prior to that we were not married. I always filed head of household up until the yr before last when h had to because we were told who ever made the most had to file head of household. Do I have you good and confused yet .Thanks broken wings.<BR> with love flowerseed<p>[This message has been edited by flowerseed (edited September 10, 2001).]

[This message has been edited by flowerseed (edited September 08, 2001).]<p>[ March 18, 2002: Message edited by: flowerseed ]</p>

My hubby and i thought of starting our own business and putting it all in my nmae with him getting nothing so he wouldn't have to pay cs(at firts we love oc now and things change)anyway in this state as in almost all they can and often will base cs on the fathers potential income. it was designed to keep fathers from just not working or working under the table as a way to get out of support. Lets say you has a license in ANY fieldthey will say a person with that license should be making x amount and base cs on that x amount. If he starts making next to nothing with you ow will take him back to court and everything will be looked at very closly and if the courts feel him working for you is not working up to his potential income then they will still order him to pay cs based on his potential income not what you claim you pay him so he could get back in arrears very babdly which you know means the potential to have tax refunds taken, lose of drivers license, lose of passport, credit reporting and possible jail time. I am NOT saying this to frighten you I am saying it to give you somethingto think about. I agree that a "seperation" is probably the best way to get the ow out of your pocket.

whatif, H is not trying to get out of paying the support we will keep paying it. We never even went in and had it lowered we were paying the same amont as if he was working. The friend of the court has a big problem with wanting to just take it they dont give us the chance to pay it on our own. I was sending it in until they garnished the unemployment which put it behind about 2 weeks again. If they would have keep there noses out I was sending a check in that week for the month. We were paying it in once a month. I have to set done and figure it out and he is just going to have to go in and straighten it out with them. Thanks for the advice. with love flowerseed

Flowerseed,<P>Pertaining to the situation whatif brought up...if H did get behind or whatever, they could take his refund...yes; but couldnt touch yours. This is filing MFS. Head of household can get you in a whole lot of trouble. Too many people try to tell their buddies the "way to get more $": and they end up being screwed. You should also examine the W-4's of you have them. Do you do W-2's , or dividends? Or do you just report your income? What kind of business? Anywas I guess that doesnt matter so much right now, but if you get any sort of income where taxes are taken out thru the year make sure you are claiming the right amount. If you need me to clarify, not prob.<BR>Love<BR>bw

Flowerseed, I just read this and my heart goes out to you. I know what you are talking about. The state garnishes the child support out of my H's paycheck, every two weeks. He owes back support too, as the OW filed for welfare after the child was two, and the state we live in made it retroactive to the birth of the child. This is despite my H having paid her several hundred dollars of support already, but having no legal representation. <P>Last year, for our 1999 taxes, I also filed the "injured spouse form" with our Federal and State tax returns. The Federal government recognizes that form and I got $800 of a possible $1600 dollar refund. (I told my H that it was only my money, as his half went to pay for his mistake.) I soon discovered that our state, Minnesota, doesn't recognize this form and they garnished my refund also. I work and contribute over a third of our total income, so it really pissed me off that as well as emotionally, I am paying financially for my H's affair. The only way that I could get my half of the return was to send all our our tax forms and financial information to the SOCIAL WORKER that handles my H's and ow child support case, and she would "figure out" how much I would get. She couldn't tell me the exact formula for how she would determine this amount. I think this is complete crap that I am being punished too. My H wouldn't let me send in all our financial information so I could get my refund because he feared the social worker would see that he had gotten a raise and tell the OW and then we would have to pay even more the the $1100/month we pay already! The following year, I made sure that they didn't take out as much tax, so that we OWED the government money, both state and federal. I would rather pay them, than pay her! <P>By the way, I would like to get a bigger house, but if we sell our house, the ow gets any equity up to the amount of owed back child support, which is around $12,000, according to our state laws. The state also automatically raises the child support every two years here....the ow doesn't even have to go to court to do it.

dacasarest, I am not alone in this. I was beginning to think maybe I was being to much of a control freak. Thank you for responding. It really makes me angry that they feel they can take money from us wives have we not been hurt enough and had enough already taken from us.
That is nuts that they can take the equity in your home and give it to her. Can you maybe tranfer the home to your name only?I just dont think I will ever understand how this world has gotten so screwed up. We have to lie and decieve just to keep what is ours I hate it. There are so many times lately that I ask myself if it is worth it I really hate it.
The thing with the foc in our case is they have always gotten the support from day one of the order going into effect. There was just a very short time in between her filing and it going to court. she didnt let no grass grow under her feet.The back support only came to around $1000.00 which I think what they are doing is the money he pays in for the back support instead of subtracting it they are somehow adding it in as owed. With the state and fed taxes they took this year it comes to more then $1000.00 dollars. Also h had to pay for the blood test which where paid for in Jan but they where still taking the full amount out for them up until I sent in the first payment, after he was fired. That was in July of this yr and put it all in order what was what and somehow got through there heads that they cant take anymore for bloodtest. So they were getting money for 7 months for something that was already paid for. They said they were taking it and applying it towards support.So with all the money they have already recieved and h has never been behind again, I really dont think they know what they are doing. Something just isnt right. Last week I called in and they are still saying he owes $900.00. They just took $600.00 more from our fed rebait or whatever you call it. I think more like they owe us $900.00 back. I still havnt had time to figure it all out it gives me a major pain in the head, neck AS*.
I wish we had a time machine we could jump in and fast foward 17 yrs even though oc is almost two they can come after us for 19 yrs aguuuuuugh I hate it. <p>[This message has been edited by flowerseed (edited September 13, 2001).]<p>[ March 18, 2002: Message edited by: flowerseed ]</p>