Form 8379: How To Request Injured Spouse Allocation From the IRS

Ebony Howard is a certified public accountant and a QuickBooks ProAdvisor tax expert. She has been in the accounting, audit, and tax profession for more than 13 years, working with individuals and a variety of companies in the health care, banking, and accounting industries.

Form 8379 allows you to get back your share of a joint tax refund if it was garnished to pay a debt or obligation owed by your spouse. These obligations might include child support payments, past-due student loan payments, or overdue state tax payments. This provision in the tax code is called "injured spouse allocation," where the "injured spouse" is the one who does not owe the debt.

Key Takeaways

• You may apply for injured spouse allocation for loss of tax refund due to your spouse's unpaid obligations.
• To be eligible, you must not be liable for the debt in question and you must have contributed income recorded on the tax return or claimed a refundable tax credit.
• Injured spouse allocation is reserved for refunds and cannot be applied to the joint tax liability.
• File IRS Form 8379, along with the necessary documents to apply for relief as an injured spouse.

Qualifying as an Injured Spouse

To qualify as an injured spouse, you must not be legally liable for the debt in question, either in whole or in part. In most cases, this means that the debt is premarital—your spouse incurred it before you were married—but they might have incurred student loans for their own benefit while you were married.

Common debts that can result in this type of offset include:

• Federally backed student loans
• Past-due child support for a child from another relationship
• Federal and state tax debts due on separately filed returns from previous years, or from returns filed before the marriage
• Unemployment compensation debts owed to a state

You’re not entitled to a share of the refund if you didn’t personally contribute to the income reported on the tax return. It doesn’t necessarily have to be earned income, however. Interest or profits from investments can meet this rule.

You must have paid in something toward the taxes due on the return as well, either because taxes were withheld from your paychecks or because you made estimated quarterly payments because you’re self-employed.

Note

You can also meet this requirement if you qualify for a refundable tax credit, because credits act as payments toward taxes owed.

What an Injured Spouse Claim Can't Do

Injured spouse relief is reserved for taxpayers who have lost some or all of their tax refunds due to their spouse's solely owed debt. It only addresses refunds. It can't relieve you from liability for paying a tax debt that's due on a jointly filed return.

How To File an Injured Spouse Claim

In order to claim relief as an injured spouse, you would need to fill out and submit IRS Form 8379. Here's how to do that.

Complete and Submit Form 8379

You can download the form from the IRS website. The instructions will walk you through the process step-by-step. Be sure to attach copies of all 1099 forms and your W-2s—your own and your spouse’s. It’s not necessary for your spouse to sign the form, but make sure you include their Social Security number. You must file a separate Form 8379 each year if the debt in question is so significant that you expect your refunds will be subject to offset for years to come.

You have two options for submitting Form 8379 to the IRS. You can attach it to your joint tax return if you receive a Notice of Offset from the U.S. Treasury Department before you file your tax return, alerting you that some or all of your potential refund will be seized when you file.

Note

Filing Form 8379 with your tax return is usually your best option, because the IRS will process it before offsetting any funds for the debt in question—in other words, before sending the refund to the entity who made a claim for the money.

You have up to three years after the original joint tax return was due to do so, including any extensions you applied for in that tax year, or two years from the date you last paid any taxes due on the return, whichever is later. Send it to the IRS address where you submitted your original tax return if you mail in a paper copy.

Some exceptions to these deadlines apply, so check with a tax professional if you think you’ve missed yours.

Note

Do not include a copy of your filed tax return if you send in Form 8379 by itself. This will only complicate the matter and slow things down.

Waiting for an IRS Decision

The IRS will review your submission and the attached documents to determine whether you meet all the rules for injured spouse relief. Unfortunately, this won’t happen quickly. The IRS indicates that it processes Form 8379 requests and responds within about 14 weeks, although you might hear back within 11 weeks or so if you file electronically.

Getting Your Refund Back

You’ll receive a portion of the refund equal to the portion of the taxes you personally paid in on that tax return if your request is approved. For example, if you and your spouse paid in $6,000 in taxes, and $3,000 of that is directly attributable to withholding from your paychecks or your estimated payments. You'll receive 50% of the refund, regardless of the existing debt.

Note

You should also receive the same prorated share of any refundable tax credits you qualified for and claimed.

Claims in Community Property States

You might be subject to special rules if you live in one of the nine community property states: Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington, and Wisconsin as of 2022.

These states take the position that debts incurred during a marriage are equally owned and owed by both spouses, and assets acquired during the marriage are equally owned by both spouses as well. This can obviously complicate things if the debt that resulted in the seizure of your refund isn't premarital. The IRS uses each state's rules to determine how much should be refunded to the injured spouse.

Note

Speak with a tax professional to find out where you stand if you live in one of these jurisdictions.

Injured Spouse vs. Innocent Spouse Relief

Injured spouse relief isn’t the same as innocent spouse relief, although both relate to jointly filed married tax returns. You’re an “injured” spouse if someone takes money that’s rightfully yours. You’re “innocent” when your spouse commits some wrongdoing on a joint return, but you had no knowledge of what they were doing.

You're considered an injured spouse when your share of a joint tax refund is used to offset a debt that's solely owed by your spouse.

Note

Do not take the steps explained here if you're asking for innocent spouse relief. It requires a different form and a different process.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

How can I file Form 8379 electronically?

You can file Form 8379 electronically with your tax return or on its own using any of the regular electronic methods for filing your taxes. These include the IRS's Free File software and electronic forms, as well as commercial software such as TurboTax or TaxAct. Some of these providers have free versions of their software for very basic returns.

Where should I mail Form 8379?

If you're filing a paper Form 8379, you'll send it to the IRS service center for the area where you live, unless you file the form by itself after you've filed your original joint return on paper. In that case, you'll send the form to the address where you filed your original return.

The Balance uses only high-quality sources, including peer-reviewed studies, to support the facts within our articles. Read our editorial process to learn more about how we fact-check and keep our content accurate, reliable, and trustworthy.

1. Internal Revenue Service. "Topic No. 203 Reduced Refund."
2. In.gov. "Non- or Partially-Responsible Spouse/Injured Spouse Information."
3. IRS. "Instructions for Form 8379."
4. IRS. "Innocent Spouse Relief."

• About Us
• Privacy Policy
• Editorial Guidelines
• Terms of Service
• Diversity and Inclusion Pledge
• Advertise
• Careers
• Contact
• EU Privacy

We Care About Your Privacy

We and our 100 partners store and/or access information on a device, such as unique IDs in cookies to process personal data. You may accept or manage your choices by clicking below, including your right to object where legitimate interest is used, or at any time in the privacy policy page. These choices will be signaled to our partners and will not affect browsing data.

We and our partners process data to provide:

Store and/or access information on a device. Use limited data to select advertising. Create profiles for personalised advertising. Use profiles to select personalised advertising. Create profiles to personalise content. Use profiles to select personalised content. Measure advertising performance. Measure content performance. Understand audiences through statistics or combinations of data from different sources. Develop and improve services. Use limited data to select content. List of Partners (vendors)