In 2017 we filed 2016 taxes as married filing jointly. We filed in 2018 as married filing separately and this year the divorce was final.
In March of this year my ex received a notice from the IRS. He told me verbally that he had some notice about selling stock and it was a mistake and he was taking care of it. Fast forward to this past week, I receive a notice from the IRS saying they hadn't received any response and we now owed a high 4 figure sum with $500 in accumulated penalties.
Per our divorce decree, I forward him the notice (3 days to send each other notices, I've never received either of the notices he received but possible he isn't aware that is in the decree). I let him know about it and he says he is taking care of it again.
He later sends me an email saying that if anything he is probably owed a refund by the IRS. I tell him that's fine. We had separate finances throughout our marriage and he kept all the money from the stock sale so I had no issue with him keeping the entirety of the refund. I ask him to send me any documents for my records. He ignores my emailed reply, which is bad. He has a habit of not replying to emails he disagrees with.
I spoke with the IRS on the phone and they said they could mail me the notices he received and never shared with me. They said he has never contacted them. They told me I might qualify for Innocent/Injured Spouse, there's a form for that, or that on their end they can split the tax bill in two so I only have to pay half.
When I saw him in person I asked him more questions. Since he has ignored all the notices since March (what's that? 8 months?) I'm concerned he still won't get to it. His procrastination was one of the reasons I divorced him. So that's a known character trait.
I ask when he thinks he'll get to it and he says he doesn't know. I ask him if he thinks he'll get to it this month and he says he doesn't know. He's still insisting if anything, he's probably getting a refund.
What I believe I've pieced together from things he's said, google, and friends is this: He owned Broadcom stock. Dividends were probably reinvested automatically. In 2016 there was a merger and if you didn't make an election, then half your stock became worth $54 and the other half was converted to the new stock. He doesn't import his financial transactions but instead types everything in manually so as not to make a mistake. He didn't think I was careful/competent enough to do our taxes so I would give him all my documents to do the taxes. I had no access to his accounts and no way to verify his half of the stuff. I only ever verified my end of the taxes. He'd get upset with my taxes (backdoor Roth, using the HSA as effectively another investment account) so I ended up helping him a lot with my stuff.
The historical prices of Broadcom stock, I believe he might be wrong about the possibility of getting a refund. And the longer this drags on the more the fees will pile up.
He seems to think he can find all the cost basis in the documents he put together for the divorce proceedings. My lawyer has/had their discovery documents so I could probably ask him to turn over all the documents for his brokerage account and start going through them.
The divorce decree says taxes owed due to omissions go to the person who made the omission. It also says I'm not barred from pursuing innocent/injured spouse.
It seems like my plan of attack is 1) get copies of the original notices to see what brokerage account he was using 2) ask my divorce lawyer for any/all documents related to that brokerage account from discovery, 3) talk to a CPA where I'll have options A) pay the whole damn thing then sue him for his half/full amount (not great for the co-parenting relationship) B) file innocent/injured spouse, he'll be notified (unsure how that will be for the co-parenting relationship), C) get the amount split in two and pay my half.
For the amount we're talking, is hiring a CPA or getting lawyers involved worthwhile?
It doesn't hold any weight that in emails he has repeatedly said the taxes are his to pay (before he decided he was getting a refund)?
Thank you for any and all advice. I might not reply again until this evening as I have activities going on with the kids.
TLDR, my ex ignored the IRS. I'm trying to figure out how to handle this.
Submitted November 04, 2018 at 08:18AM by aexspouse https://ift.tt/2D4pKpY
