What Does Innocent-Spouse Rule Mean?
A measure of relief built into the tax code that allows a person, if eligible, to avoid paying his or her spouse’s tax if it was reported incorrectly. The innocent-spouse rule applies to a spouse that can prove that he or she did not incur the tax bill and did not somehow benefit from the failure to pay. Ultimately, this rule is designed to protect people from liability for taxes incurred as a result of evasive or dishonest financial behavior by their spouses, or from divorces where one person fails to pay tax on the income he or she earned and intends to leave the other spouse with the bill.
