concerned with taxes

You will not be responsible for the tax if you do not file a joint return for the tax year and also if you do not include in your gross income on the separate return any item of community income.

Hi Lina,

There are few more points which are to be met along with what sl_r mentioned about tax returns.

Firstly, the items of community income you do not include in your separate return should be any of the following:

• Compensations such as salaries, wages and other type of compensations your spouse received for his services as an employee.


• Income from sole proprietorship business of your spouse.


• Distributive share of partnership income of your spouse.


• Income from your spouse's separate property apart from the incomes mentioned above.


• As per community property law if there is any other income which belongs to your spouse.

Secondly, you establish that you didn't know about and had no reason to know about that community income.

Lastly, if after taking into consideration all facts and circumstances, it would not be fair to include items of community income in your gross income.

Do let us know if you have any other doubts.

Colin

Hi Lina,

There are certain conditions under which you will not be responsible for reporting an item as community income when you file your tax return. Some of these conditions are:

• You file a separate return for the given tax year.
  
• You do not include the item of community income within your gross income on the separate return.
  
• You prove that you are not aware of the existence of community income.

For more information, you can look into the IRS publication on Taxes on Community property and Income.

Thanks,

Caron.