Who Pays Back Taxes After a Divorce in Missouri?
If you filed a joint federal return, both of you are responsible, and your divorce judgment does not change that as far as the IRS is concerned. However, your divorce Judgment can detail who ultimately pays for the debt.
Your exposure covers the tax, the interest and the penalties. The IRS sets this out in Publication 504, its guide for divorced or separated individuals.
So who pays back taxes after a divorce has two answers running at once, and they do not have to agree. That lands hard when your former spouse prepared the return, ran the finances, and is the reason there is a balance. The way through it is to keep two questions apart. Federal tax law asks whether you are responsible. Your Missouri judgment asks which of you carries the cost between the two of you. Those are different questions with different answers.
What Does Joint and Several Liability Actually Mean?
That the IRS can pursue the whole balance from either of you. Not half each.
26 U.S.C. Section 6013(d)(3) provides that where a joint return is filed, the tax is computed on the combined income and the liability is joint and several. Publication 504 says the same thing in plain words. Both spouses may be held responsible, jointly and individually, and the IRS can hold one spouse liable for all of the tax even where the other spouse earned the income.
Sit with the last clause of that. A spouse who earned nothing, signed where they were told to sign, and never read the schedules is inside the liability. Whether they can get out of it later is a separate question with its own process, covered further down.
Does Your Divorce Decree Bind the IRS?
No. The IRS was not a party to your dissolution and its collection rights do not come from your judgment.
Missouri describes the limit of that authority carefully. In Wright v. Wright, 1 S.W.3d 52 (Mo. App. W.D. 1999), quoting Hileman v. Hileman, the Western District described the trial court’s power as one where “one spouse may be assigned the primary duty to pay off the debt and hold the other spouse harmless on the same.” The Western District quoted that same language again in Wilson v. Wilson, No. WD85210 (Mo. App. W.D., 18 April 2023).
So who pays back taxes after a divorce, as between the two of you, is whatever the judgment says. Note who those words bind. One spouse and the other spouse. Not a lender, not a card issuer, and not the Internal Revenue Service. The decree tells your former spouse what to pay. It does not tell the IRS what to collect. Our FAQ on whether a decree stops the bank calling you covers the identical problem on the consumer credit side.
If the IRS takes the money from you for a balance your judgment assigned to your former spouse, the judgment may give you a claim for reimbursement. That claim runs against your former spouse. It does not run against the IRS.
What Relief Exists If Your Ex Was Responsible?
Three federal categories, and all three are requested from the IRS rather than granted by a Missouri court.
Publication 504 identifies them.
- Innocent spouse relief. Where an understatement of tax came from an item belonging to your spouse or former spouse and you did not know, and had no reason to know, about the problem
- Separation of liability. Available to certain joint filers who are divorced, legally separated, widowed, or who have not lived together for the required period
- Equitable relief. Where it would be unfair to hold you responsible and you do not qualify under either of the other two
Each has its own requirements and all three are requested on Form 8857. Publication 504 points to Publication 971 for the eligibility detail.
Here is where we stop and say so plainly. We practice family law. We do not prepare returns, we do not decide whether federal relief applies to you, and we will not pretend otherwise. That review belongs to a tax professional who can read the return, the notices and the circumstances of the filing. What we handle is the half that sits between you and your former spouse.
Should You File Jointly While the Divorce Is Pending?
That is a tax question with a real number attached, and it deserves a tax professional rather than a guess made in a stressful month.
The tradeoff itself is not complicated. A joint return often produces a lower combined federal tax. It also creates joint and several liability for everything reported on it, and for anything assessed on it later. Separate returns generally keep each person on their own hook, and the combined tax is often higher.
Publication 504 recommends comparing the tax both ways where both spouses have income. Which way wins depends on the numbers, the deductions and credits in play, how accurate the information is, and how much each of you actually knows about the other’s finances.
That last factor is the one people skip. Signing a joint return is a statement about a document you may not have read, and the savings are worth having only if you are confident in what is on it. Ask a tax professional to run both options, and ask your family law attorney how the judgment should handle a later balance, an audit, an amended return or a refund.
What Can the Decree Actually Do About Taxes?
Allocate the cost between the two of you, and give you a claim if your former spouse does not honor it. That protection is real and it is also bounded.
A tax provision that works usually covers all of the following.
- The years. Name the specific tax years covered rather than referring to past returns generally
- The split. Who pays each balance and in what proportion
- The later balance. What happens to something discovered afterwards through an amended return, an audit or a correction
- Indemnity and hold harmless language. Our FAQ on what a hold harmless clause actually does covers how much work that wording has to do
- Refunds. A refund from a joint year is an asset, and it gets forgotten more often than a liability does
- Cooperation. Both former spouses producing documents needed for an audit, a relief request or an amended return
- Fees. Whether the judgment addresses attorney fees if enforcement becomes necessary
Section 452.325.5 RSMo makes terms of an agreement set out in the decree enforceable by all the remedies available for enforcing a judgment, and allows a court to punish a willful violation as contempt. Our FAQ on contempt for an unpaid debt covers what that takes.
And there is no second draft. Section 452.330.5 RSMo makes the order affecting distribution of marital property “a final order not subject to modification.” The tax paragraph is worth an hour before entry rather than a motion afterwards.
How Is a Tax Debt Treated in the Division?
Often as a marital debt, though the court looks at what produced the balance rather than only at which year it came from.
Section 452.330.1 RSMo directs the court to divide marital property and marital debts “in such proportions as the court deems just after considering all relevant factors including” the economic circumstances of each spouse and the conduct of the parties during the marriage.
In Hicks v. Hicks, 969 S.W.2d 840 (Mo. App. W.D. 1998), the Western District described marital debt as ordinarily debt incurred after the marriage, and treated whether the debt was used to benefit the marriage as part of the fair division analysis. A tax liability on income that paid the household bills fits that description comfortably.
Between the two of you, who pays back taxes after a divorce is a division question, and it runs on the same factors as everything else in the estate. Conduct is where it stops being automatic. Unreported income, an invented deduction, an aggressive position taken by one spouse, or penalties generated by one person’s filing all sit inside the conduct factor, and nothing requires a court to split that balance down the middle. Our FAQ on marital debt in Missouri and our FAQ on debt after separation cover the wider analysis. Records are what turn an argument about a tax balance into a fact about one.
Can Your Ex Discharge a Tax Debt They Were Assigned?
What they owe you under the judgment and what is owed to the IRS are two separate questions, and only the first one is a family law question.
On the first, Henderson v. Henderson, 389 S.W.3d 260 (Mo. App. E.D. 2012) held that an obligation connected to the division of marital debt does not fall outside 11 U.S.C. Section 523(a)(15) merely because payment runs to a lender rather than to the former spouse directly. In the court’s words, “the requirement of Section 523(a)(15) that the debt be owed to a former spouse is met so long as the debts are payable for the former spouse’s benefit.”
The second question, what happens to the liability owed to the IRS itself, runs on federal tax and bankruptcy law and belongs to a bankruptcy attorney and a tax professional. Our FAQ on discharging divorce debts in bankruptcy sets out the framework.
What Does the Decree Not Do?
Three things, and each one gets assumed into it every year.
It does not stop the IRS coming to you for the full balance on a joint return you signed. That is Section 6013(d)(3) and no state judgment reaches it.
It does not qualify anybody for federal relief. Relief comes from a request under federal law, generally on Form 8857. A paragraph in a Missouri judgment is not a substitute for filing one, and treating it as one is how a deadline gets missed.
And it does not make your former spouse pay. Section 452.325.5 RSMo gives you remedies if they do not, which is precisely why the indemnity wording, the hold harmless wording and any security behind the promise are worth reading closely before the judgment is entered rather than after the notice arrives.
Who Can Help With a Joint Tax Debt in St. Louis?
Tax years that straddle a marriage tend to outlive everything else in a divorce, and they are far easier to handle at the drafting table than to unpick two years later with a notice in your hand.
Bardol Law Firm practices only family law and handles property and debt division for families in St. Louis County, St. Louis City, St. Charles County and Jefferson County. We work alongside your tax professional rather than in place of one, and we will tell you plainly when a question belongs to them. You can read more about property and asset division, about high net worth divorce, and about the rest of our family law questions and answers.
You should not be sitting on an IRS letter waiting for somebody to call you back. Every client here has a named paralegal on the file, and we generally return calls within one business day.
Family Law, Simplified.
If a notice has arrived for a year you filed jointly, bring it and the judgment to the first conversation. Contact Bardol Law Firm or call 314.918.0100.
This page is general information about Missouri law and is not legal advice. Every case turns on its own facts. The choice of a lawyer is an important decision and should not be based solely upon advertisements.