I am trying to find out of my friend. She is seporated from her husband because of demestic violance so there is no way she is going to go back with him. She has filed their taxes becasue he was crazy enough to give her his tax information. Is she legaly obligated to give him half of the money. I know some would say she should. BUT he has left her and her four children and has not yet in 9 months paid child support yet she still lets him see them every weekend. She is fully supporting them. Even when they go see him she sends their food. Thanks for any advice you can give me to help her. She is one of the best friends a person could ever have!
By the way she did not file the taxes behide his back he knew she was filing them.
Thanks for all the advise. I will let her know.
is she legally seperated with a child support order? Technically, if there is no legal seperation, he has a legal right to the money, as in a marriage everything is considered joint. However, if she has a child support order and he hasn't paid in 9 months, she should seriously report it to the Child Support Enforcement Agency and they can begin to garnish his wages, which includes his entire tax refund, until the money back money is paid.
Is she doing the whole tax return with his W-2s and everything?? She can't forge his signature and if she was submitting both of their information a signature from him would be required. What about "married filing separately" as an option? At this point I don't see "head of household" as an option either or claiming their daughter alone without an issue.
If they are not divorced he is entitled to half the refund. She can get into a world of trouble for not giving it to him. What she needs to do is petition the court to put his half towards back child support. Then she is in the clear.
I don't know if the OP will read this but if he was the main wage earner she will lose everything filing separately. You can only file for what you have earned and paid in withholding.
Just so everyone knows the crime is either forging his name on the refund check or depositing the refund into an account he has no access to. In other words it must be deposited into a joint account.
During my divorce he had to endorse the check and hand it over to the court who split it and sent each of us checks. It is the only legal way to distribute the money.
I would say that the best thing to do in a situation like this is to get a lawyer involved. A lot of states have pro bono work or people that are volunteering their time to solve this issues of dead beat fathers like this.
I would keep the money for now but get a lawyer immediately so that the separation can be legal and she can get child support.
She should never have filed the taxes - did he sign the papers? she should have filed married filing separately - yes, she owes him his half.....I am trying to figure out why she lets the kids go see him if he is so violent...been there, done that....she needs to file for divorce, get supervised visitation if she can now after letting them go, and child support - wait - if they are not divorced she can probably keep the money and use it for an attorney.....good luck to her...
