No. Divorcing him won't end your tax nightmares.

No matter what you write in your Divorce Agreement, the IRS will still go after you for your ex-husband's (or ex-wife's) tax sins. But relief is available - you just need to play by the IRS's rules.

(Note: I'm cross-posting this article I wrote for LinkedIn earlier today, because I think people often misunderstand what happens to tax liabilities when they get divorced.)

So, you have been married for decades, the kids are off to college, and you finally have the chance to pursue the career you sacrificed in your twenties in order to raise a family.

Any romance that existed at the start of your marriage has all but disappeared. You don't really consider divorcing him though. That causes all sorts of uncertainty. Who will get to stay in the house? Who will get the jet skis? What about the timeshare? It just isn't worth it to consider.

But then, when you are applying for a new car loan, you get denied. That doesn't make any sense. So you pull your credit report. And what you find there has you baffled. You have a tax lien?

OK. So now you've had enough. You have always relied on your husband to handle financial matters. He was the one making the income, he was the one who had the deductions, he hired the CPA, he even signed for you on financial documents and signed tax returns on your behalf. While you might have known he wasn't the most organized person, you never pegged him as the type who would ignore his tax responsibilities. But now you know who he really is.

So you go to see a divorce attorney.

There will be tears, blame, red faces, and shouting. But when the dust settles, your lawyers are able to hammer out a deal. They address the taxes specifically in the Divorce Agreement. He will pay the taxes, he will be responsible for any additions to tax as the result of the audit. He will "hold you harmless." He will "indemnify" you.

Sounds good. But the IRS doesn't care.

What you have is an agreement between you and your now ex-husband. If he doesn't honor that agreement, you can take him back to court to enforce it. You know who isn't a party to that agreement? the IRS.

Since you were a homemaker and your husband was earning all of the money (and a lot of it), it made perfect sense to file a joint return. Filing a return as one taxable unit is so overwhelmingly beneficial from a tax-savings perspective that roughly 95% of all married couples (even those with dual income streams) use the Married Filing Joint status. It's a powerful status.

The problem is that with joint power comes joint responsibility. When your ex-husband filed that joint return, and you either: a) signed it or b) somehow authorized him to sign on your behalf, you agreed to be held responsible for any omissions, inflated numbers, and the actual payment of the liability.

So, the IRS now has two people to collect from when a tax is left unpaid. Your divorce does not erase your joint liability. It doesn't even split it in half. Yes. The IRS can collect the entire amount from YOU no matter what the divorce agreement says.

That doesn't mean that there is no hope, it just means that you will need to convince the IRS that you qualify for one of the three types of Innocent Spouse Relief. Divorce is a factor that the IRS will consider (or require as a threshold condition for one of the tests), as is legal responsibility, but neither is outcome determinative.

Tom Groth is a Tax Lawyer with a particular passion for Innocent Spouse cases. His mission is always to get the IRS to think of us as people, not numbers.