and under code section sixty five eleven and by regular operation of i r s procedures she should receive refunds back two years from the day of her bridge and will claim the form eighty three seventy nine met the requirements from the three part test set forth by the tax court in jackson be commissioner a request must be in writing the writing in conjunction with the surrounding circumstances adequately notifies the service of the refund claim and the basis of the claim and the taxpayer perfects the claim before the rejection of the informal claim the writing here is satisfied by the form eighty three seventy nine injured spouse form their surrounding circumstances provided the i r s with adequate notice when you talk about surrounding circumstances what are you talking about well the surrounding circumstances is are that there is no doubt ms paul maritz was claiming a refund as the form eighty three seventy nine is a request for a refund she was clearly trying to obtain the refund that she did not receive it is evident that misspell maris was claiming the refund because the form eighty three seventy nine injured spouse was not filed with a joint return what's the difference between an injured spouse and an innocent spouse can i finish my question for the purpose of the internal revenue the injured spouse claim is when you are married and your spouse has a liability and you don't want that liabilities to affect your refund you would file a form to protect your refund and then the innocent spouse is when you are separated and you would like your refunds back that are being applied to a joint liability from when you were married  so because there was not a joint return filed the eighty three seventy nine could not be entered the injured spouse return or refund klein did return they could see that she had the one thousand nine hundred ninety six tax liability and that she was requesting a refund she just used the wrong form they had to know that because they had been they had been keeping her overpayment right there applied heard two thousand and six and two thousand and seven refunds to this joint liability from ninety six isn't the real problem here though i mean if you say that eighty three seventy nine form qualifies and the surrounding circumstances alerted the i r s the by the was filed it was already and valid because there was no joint return so when the i r s denies the eighty three seventy nine there really is no claim for injured spouse there is a claim for innocent spouse and they did not deny innocent spouse they denied an invalid injured spouse what legal authority police is a burden upon the internal revenue service when someone files an incorrect form were there are surrounding circumstances that there might be a more appropriate form to be filed is there a burden on the service to have told your client look at you can't file this one because it's goes against a joint return but you may have a basis for an innocent spouse that's a different form if you feel that one  to do that they were not under an obligation to do that but they did send a letter stating that they knew she was intending to file an innocent spouse and sent her the form they are required to do that but by operation of regular iris procedures and under code section sixty five eleven one age eighty three seventy nine is filed they look for the joint return upon not seeing that they knew that it was an innocent any english at the time and so when she received the letter she did not understand what it was sane but eventually filed she does yes she gets more help and eventually is able to file and she her claim which is the last part of the test from jackson counsel how long did she to lay filing the correct form after she received claim in two thousand and eight and then did not file her innocent spouse claim and till two thousand and ten ok limitations for yes we are saying that the claim eighty three seventy nine was the original claim for innocent spouse and so the refund should go back two years from that date a claim which which would which period of so she filed eighty three seventy nine in two thousand and eight issue go back two years to two thousand and six and two thousand and seven yes and two thousand and seven how much money are we talking about how much is  yes thank you thanks counsel miller from the government may please the court i'm regina moriarty and i represent the commissioner of internal revenue in this case correctly held the taxpayer was barred by section sixty five eleven from obtaining refunds of over payments for two thousand and two thousand and seven there's no question in this case that the circumstances are unfortunate  and in fact when the i r s first found out about these circumstances in two thousand and ten it looked at them and it granted the taxpayer here in a sense spouse relief but it was  form itself the eighty three seventy nine there's absolutely no information on their deal if you compare the two forms eighty three seventy nine hundred eighty eight fifty or anything in the record that shows how how she came about to file the eighty three seventy nine to begin with the transcript indicates that she was working with the northwest justice center and they came up with the idea that you know it's really three seventy nine she was working with an attorney whose name i believe was parker parsons  and in fact she was working with him according the transcript through two thousand and eight to something ninety two thousand and ten and he was helping her with her divorce and child custody dispute as well and so that was  who assisted her in filling out the form if you look at the form and it's on e r ninety four right at the top of the injured spouse form eighty three seventy  nine course it to see the instructions and there are only two pages of instructions so it's it's pretty brief and but those instructions ask you a question are you an injured spouse and then it tells you what one is at then further down the page it says innocent spouse relief do not file this form if you are claiming innocence spouse really so to the extent that they made the argument that the form was changed in and what not i think the i r s routinely looks at their documents and forms and tries to improve them but this form in and of itself was was clear as to what the relief what you filed the form for and in this case when the i rest received  itself would tell the i r s that injured spouse allocation is not the primary the proper form to filing and so the i r s pretty quickly turns that around and sends her a letter back telling her you don't qualify for that relief because if they look at that same transcript it could for two thousand and seven which was the only year that was listed on the injured it tells you where that refund was sent and it tells you it went to  six that does not in any way mean that the i r s would go back and look at the ninety six return and and see any of that but the iris went a step further and said here's the form that you you might need to mean to be filing they had no idea because in two thousand and eight you do they do routinely is that a common practice i mean it seems like they must've been some information in their files that alerted them that this is really what she needed to do well in in two thousand and eight when they received this form they had no idea that she didn't speak or understand english they had no idea that she was experiencing any type of financial hardship they didn't know that the tax debt for ninety six was due only to her husband's income and they didn't know she had experienced any other hardship and domestic issues all they knew at that time was that she was filing this form asking for a refund i don't know if they would routinely send that out or not in this case they knew she wasn't intitled to the injured spouse allocation relief because she hadn't filed a joint return for that year so you're in your estimation as it's just that she'd been her or her returns where she'd gotten the refund on her own and cannot have been filed as head of her own household that right she single or whatever yes she filed her returns for later years as head of household and her withholding was more than the tax liability for those years and so under sixty four zero to the it's proper for the i r s to to take those amounts and apply them to a tax debt that she lawfully was liable for at that time she had signed the joint return with her husband in it was ninety six return it was filed in one nine hundred ninety nine and so at that time she was liable for that tax debt it wasn't until two thousand and ten when the i r s knew all of her circumstances that it granted her the equitable relief of innocence about this is that the irises position that the eighty three seventy nine form couldn't serve as the first step in the acquittal analysis it could not serve as an informal claim for a refund for innocent spouse really in this instance because it didn't have any of the information on that it would need the informal claim doctrine is used when there's you know it one or two minor things wrong with your claim and you come back at a later time and you correct those and in this case not only was all of that information that one would need to make an innocent spouse the terminations missing from that form it was then denied by the i r s in september of two thousand and eight and so at that point there was no claim  that could be perfected in two thousand and ten that once in a claim is disposed of you can't come back and later amend it you're talking about the letter again referring to the eighty three seventy nine form that they sent in september twenty fourth two thousand and right because the letter says you do not qualify for your refund and then explains why because it that was used to offset  determined you do not qualify for the refund right because you didn't file a joint return for that year but when you go back to look at the eighty three seventy nine there's absolutely nothing in that only so you may have intended to file for fifty seven for the innocent spouse really right in there courtesy the i r s doesn't know at the time because they're saying they they don't know because they have no information from that that was a form letter and no one is success doing that the i r s or some are responsible for that gap the two year proximate you have to it occurred right but it sounds like that letter is fairly commonly say when someone file this if you're an innocent spouse anyway no rule says you have to use all your time and i just want to make one one or two more quick points because i do sam still trying to seek a refund for both two thousand and six and two thousand and seven if the position of the i r s the two thousand and six can't come into play in any circumstances here because the eighty three seventy nine never mentioned that two thousand and six tax year if that is the informal calling well the informal claims even if you treated it as i mean didn't a tax court say this this could qualify this as an informal going no they specifically held that that it was not a myth you really must be confusing what i mean rather i think what you're asking is could somebody fill this format and provide enough information it doesn't matter that it's one form or the other because you can submit a claim for refund in any kind of writing i mean the i r s has all kinds of forms counsel was me information please that you feel was missing from the eighty three seventy nine for that she filed a joint return with her husband she didn't think she was liable for that amount the reason she wasn't liable for that amount was because it was a tax based on her husband's income not hers she suffers financial hardship right now and  it would be an equitable to hold her liable for that so she did it in substance that made the point those points really then she could get through if it would have been viewed as as  a valid claim for a refund for innocent spouse relief not a claim for injured spouse allocation thank you help me if you could explain how in your view the eighty three seventy nine in substance communicated the central points that your  friend on the other side of the cases right so what we're saying is that it is all of the surrounding circumstances showed the i r s that she was claiming innocence spouse there was no joint return they knew that it was not injured spouse she was claiming it for a refund from the ninety six liability that meant that the only option was innocent spouse and they also sent the letter to request more information so they did did she give the grounds know she later perfected the claim with all of the later details and then also i just wanted to let the record reflect that the there was an attorney for the eighty eight fifty seven but it was a volunteer who helped her file the eighty three seventy nine and then also the forms are just very confusing which is another surrounding circumstance the i r s is aware of this they had to change the forms here today we had to talk about it because it is such a confusing concept and so when they got this wrong form they were aware of what was happening and then also the letter that they saw her was not a form letter there was no joint liability and they had to explain not maris is entitled to refund stadium back two years from the date of the injured spouse claim because it meets the requirements of the informal claim doctrine because paul maritz filed a writing clearly requested a refund in the i adequately put on notice the court should rule in our favor re woodcrest the previous court ruling be overturned thank you counsel it's well presented on both sides and we appreciate the five not shall not be submitted and the court will take a recess for fifteen or twenty minutes let's say fifteen minutes before resuming on the final two case