Court Opinion

ID: 9522221
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 02:20:03.883229+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T13:02:24.541906
License: Public Domain

KIRSCH, Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
"For better, for worse; for richer, for poorer."
These words uttered at the beginning of so many marital relationships oftentimes come into fuller focus when those relationships are dissolved.
My colleagues hold that the trial court was within its discretion in concluding that a spouse may be found to have dissipated property for her refusal to sign and file joint tax returns. I respectfully dissent from that holding.
When she refused to sign and file a joint tax return, the relationship between Anna Mae Hardebeck and her husband was already strained. I do not know, nor need to know, the causes. Typically though, such causes either include or result in a loss of trust on the part of one or both partners. I believe that requiring a spouse to execute a joint income tax return in such cireumstances and to incur the *703joint and several liability that accompanies filing such a return, including any deficiencies resulting from it, any penalties assessed because of it and any additional tax liability subsequently imposed on it is bad law and bad policy.
My colleagues note that "Wife does not suggest, nor would the record support that she filed her tax returns separately in order to protect herself based on a reasonable belief that Husband's joint returns were fraudulent or otherwise subject to challenge." Opinion, p. 702. I would respond that Wife's potential lability goes far beyond potential liability for fraud. Here, there is no indication that the parties' tax liability has been finally determined, that the parties' financial condition has been audited, or that the tendered joint returns eontained no deductions or other tax treatments that may be subject to challenge. While the federal tax laws provide certain protections for innocent spouses who sign joint returns, the spouse has the burden of proving not only that she did not know of such improper treatment, but also that she did not benefit from it.
Finally, I note that there is no evidence that Husband offered to indemnify Wife in any way for any tax liabilities subsequently assessed because of the joint return, and the trial court's decree neither orders Husband to pay any subsequently determined tax liability or indemnify Wife against such Hability.
From my perspective, Wife was not only within her statutory rights in refusing to file a joint tax return, but she may have been acting with great prudence in doing so. I would reverse the trial court's finding that Wife's refusal to sign joint income tax returns was dissipation.