Originally published on Forbes.com Sept 23rd, 2014
Something that many people do not understand is that filing a joint income tax return with your spouse is an election. You don’t have to do it. Of course, probably more often than not, it will cost a couple to file separately, although if they could claim to be single they might come out ahead. You’re not supposed to do that if you are actually married though. The main reason that you might choose to not file a joint return is to avoid joint and several liability. I’ve written about that a lot.
There is another wrinkle to joint filing being an election. Some elections have to be made with a timely filed return. You snooze, you lose. That’s not the case with joint returns. You can even amend to a joint return, from separate returns, although you can’t go the other way. There is still a requirement, though. In order to file jointly, you have to, well, file. If the IRS files for you, which is what happens to procrastinators and certain stubborn people, you lose the ability to file jointly. That is what Donald Salzer heard about from the Tax Court last week.
Mr. Salzer, whom the Tax Court characterizes as a substantial wage earner, did not file a return in 2010, because he disagreed with government policies. I have to have some admiration, perhaps grudging, for that, since that type of thing is what got Henry David Thoreau the night in jail that resulted in his writing about civil disobedience.
Thoreau was protesting the Mexican War, but Mr. Salzer had quite a few things troubling him about the way the country has been going.
We are citizens of the United States of America. We have paid taxes to what we thought was the United States of America. Apparently through the years, socialism has taken control of this country without us being aware of it. In 2008, George W. Bush asked the American people to accept socialism and Barak Obama has plowed straight ahead with tons more. We resoundingly reject it which is shown in our not having submitted a tax form for 2008 or 2009 and will not be doing so for 2010. We support the United States of America, the republic, the Christian nation; we do not support this socialist government that has hijacked Washington DC. God has said “Blessed is that country whose God is the Lord.” (Psalm 33:12) This government has shown nothing but malice toward the American people, has attacked our soldiers and veterans in various ways, has attacked our children at the public schools by trying to push wrong beliefs—contrary to the Bible— to them, has sexually assaulted our people at the airports in the name of security, is killing the unborn, has taken over car companies, have taken control of the banks, taking over our health care and sold us to China. We know what socialism is. Socialism is not “just another economic theory”. There is no good kind of socialism. It is an anti-Christian, anti-American and against the U.S. Constitution. It is about trying to control people and deprive them of what they need. Because of it, millions of people have died. We reject this whole heartedly. We do not want this happening to the people of this country or anywhere. This needs to stop now.
]I’d missed President Bush II calling for us to adopt socialism, but that is probably me not paying enough attention. Apparently even President Obama accused his predecessor of being socialist.
It was hard for me to believe that you were entirely serious about that socialist question. I did think it might be useful to point out that it wasn’t under me that we started buying a bunch of shares of banks.
At any rate the protest did not get Mr. Salzer so much as a few minutes in jail, much less a whole night. It got him free tax preparation from the IRS. As he discovered though, free tax preparation by the IRS can end up being even more expensive than a free cat. They’ll just look at the gross income. No personal exemptions other than yourself, deductions etc.
Some of that got adjusted, but one thing that was not adjusted was filing status.
Petitioner contends that he could have filed a joint return for 2010 but chose not to because of his disagreement with Government policies. However, as the U.S. Supreme Court instructs, we give effect to what actually happened and not what might have happened.
Petitioner addresses the additions to tax only inferentially by alleging that he would be due a refund if joint filing status were now allowed. Perhaps this allegation is true, but it is irrelevant because it invites us to enter the speculative might have/could have realm, which, as previously stated, we may not.
So the moral if the story is that if you want the benefit of joint filing, you have to, you know, file. And convince your spouse to sign the return.
In June, Lew Taishoff wrote about Mr. Salzer’s Tax Court loss on the same issue for the earlier tax year in a post titled “Blowing The Joint”.