suggest that you call the tax payer advocate 1-877-777-4778 (this is the number I used...not sure if it's still the same, but would guess it would be since those numbers don't usually change). They were very helpful with me when my husband messed up my taxes very badly being the "know it all" that he normally was all our married life & never willing to admit he didn't KNOW how to do something because he always knows everything & can't possibly admit that he doesn't.

My husband always did our taxes as they were mostly very simple even when we both had our careers going. However,5 years ago, I went through a horrible trauma when my Mother was dying of cancer (with the home care person). It messed me up so bad, I couldn't focus on anything for several years after the trauma & my mother's death. I inherited everything being the only child......I was keeping my inheritance away from my husband as I didn't want it completely lost because of him. I didn't trust him to do the taxes of my Mothers the year after her death, & suggested to my husband that the same accountant do our taxes because of the inheritance. I was going to outpatient treatment at the time & was having horrible flashbacks so I wasn't in any condition to FORCE him to do the right thing with our 2005 taxes. Come February 2008, I get a letter in the mail (thank heavens I had our mail forwarded to my Kentucky farm when he came with me that Christmas to spend the first Christmas at my farm until I kicked him out & back to California a few weeks later). The letter from the IRS said it was the second letter & a response was required within 10 days or action would be taken. I had never even seen or heard of another letter.....my husband never said anything or mentioned anything & it had to have come at the time when I was back in California just before coming back to KY to close on my farm. Anger...you betcha......if he had told me at the time he got the letter, I had the money to pay the taxes, but by the time I got the second letter, I had put the money into fixing up the farm. Oh yea, he remembered getting the letter 10 months before & just never bothered to tell me about it & never bothered to communicate to the IRS either. In his normal way of handling things, he sticks his head in the sand thinking that if he doesn't bother to take care of it, it will just go away. Unfortunately, that had always been his attitude about everything our whole marriage, so it was just another part of why I couldn't stand him & had absolutely no love for him for all those years.

I managed to go through the taxes & figure out exactly what he had done wrong. Some of it was wrong on the IRS part & I got them to reverse that amount but the huge amount was all about his wrong accounting on the owing of the tax on the inheritance that was money that hadn't had taxes paid on it in the first place (sort of like the 401K's).....even though it's inheritance, if income tax hadn't been paid on the money, as soon as it's disbursed, the tax is owed. I got most of the penalties written off except for the ones for not having paid the tax. They informed me that as soon as the tax is paid in full, I can ask to have that penalty removed.

They ended up agreeing to a payment arrangement which I will probably be paying for at least 10 years. Since we were splitting the responsibility (he's at least paying the interest & covering the penalty if I can't get it written off) & we didn't have the money to pay the amount, I made him take out his retirement fund early which just covered the amount & gave him a few dollars a month extra since in divorce 1/2 of it would be mine anyway & he needed to take some responsibility for not having told me when I had the cash to pay it off with.

It was just another issues that proved how much I couldn't trust him to take care of anything correctly or communicate with me. It was a good thing he was in California when I got that letter because if he had been living with me.....not sure what I would have done.....but it wouldn't have been a good thing. I never understood the comment about being so angry you can see red, but every time I had anything to do with my husband, he pushed my buttons & my anger to that point.

I'm glad you don't have the conflicts with your spouse that I had with my husband. It's hard enough getting through the rough spots when you get along, but when you can't stand the person, it makes it impossible.

I am sure that the tax payer advocate will be able to help you figure out how to handle the situation. They give you all the necessary information & were very kind & helpful to me.