Tax Intercept for Unpaid Child Support

My question involves child support in the State of: FL

CSE case qualifiesand was set up for tax intercept. Over $22,000 in arrears, not making payments, all that stuff. NCP claims poverty and can't make payments at contempt hearing.

Huge tax refund taken and held for the waiting period cause its a joint return. The whole thing returned to NCP. What is wrong with this picture. ?:wallbang:

What happened when you called CSE?

What did they say?

They said that the IRS requested the money back and they turned it back over to them. That was several months ago. If it was a joint return I know the spouse can file an innocent spouse claim. It would be hard to believe the entire refund belonged to one person. We are talking over 5 grand.

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Quoting distressedmom

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They said that the IRS requested the money back and they turned it back over to them. That was several months ago. If it was a joint return I know the spouse can file an innocent spouse claim. It would be hard to believe the entire refund belonged to one person. We are talking over 5 grand.

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Actually it not hard to do. The husband claim X amount of people on his tax forms so his company take out as little as possible. To the point if he files seperately he would end up owing taxes and his wife would claim 0 amount and she has the largest percentage taken out so she end up with large refund. On the tax form it is basically all her refund. It is Not illegal to do this and pretty simple to do.

Lawrence is spot on. Absolutely correct :)

Interesting concept. However, how that an tax intercept work if a couple filed separately? One reason a couple may file separately is so that the innocent spouse is not subject to the intercept.

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Quoting distressedmom

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Interesting concept. However, how that an tax intercept work if a couple filed separately? One reason a couple may file separately is so that the innocent spouse is not subject to the intercept.

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True, but you would lose the advantages of filing jointly.

Right, so the couple would have to do a risk/benefit assessment.

You guys lost me here. To do what you were talking about earlier, the couple would have to file separately, yes?

In this case if a joint return is filed the injured spouse can only claim their contribution. So it doesn't make sense why they get back the entire refund. No money is owed to the state. Only secured judgement is the child support, which is being enforced with the intercept.

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You guys lost me here. To do what you were talking about earlier, the couple would have to file separately, yes?

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No. It depends upon how many deductions the couple claims on their respective W-4 forms. For example, if the NCP has 10 deductions listed on his/her W-4, then the amount of taxes taken from his paycheck each month will be quite small, if any. Furthermore, if his/her spouse lists zero deductions on his/her W-4 then the taxes pulled from his/her paycheck will be higher. Therefore, when the couple goes to file their taxes, the step-parents's tax contribution will be higher than the NCP's; it could even be calculated to be the entire refund amount.

Unfortunately, there are ways to circumvent tax intercepts.