Nancy Rossner: Protecting Your Taxes in a High-Conflict Divorce

Filing jointly with your spouse can hand you a bigger refund, and, if that return is ever wrong, a bill you never saw coming. Attorney Nancy Rossner says that is the trade-off people going through a divorce underestimate, because the IRS can hold either spouse responsible for the whole balance, including tax on income the other person left off.

Nancy Rossner is an attorney and the executive director of the Community Tax Law Project, a nonprofit low-income taxpayer clinic in Richmond, Virginia that serves the whole state and is part of a national network of clinics offering the same free help. She has been on the show before, and Lisa treats this as an annual tradition timed to tax season, because the questions come up in the BTGO community every single year.

In this episode, Nancy and Lisa cover the choice between filing jointly and separately and the risk each carries, why an agreement over who claims a child is a contract with real consequences, and the rule people trip over most: the earned income tax credit follows the child, no matter what the decree assigns. They talk about keeping a dated calendar of overnights as proof, filing early and using an IRS identity protection PIN so an ex can't claim your kids first, and building enforcement language with deadlines and consequences into any agreement about tax debt.

Nancy also explains the superseding return, using a client whose spouse pocketed the joint refund: filing her own return before the deadline replaced the joint one and got her money back. She closes with the free options worth knowing, from VITA and United Way to the taxpayer advocate service and the clinic list in IRS Publication 4134.

As always, this is strategic education, not legal or mental-health advice for your specific situation.

🎓 What you'll learn

• Why a joint return can leave you owing tax on income your spouse hid or misreported
• The earned income tax credit follows the child, whatever the divorce decree assigns
• Why an agreement over who claims a child is a contract you can be sued for breaking
• How to prove which parent had the child more: a dated calendar of overnights
• File early and use an IRS identity protection PIN so an ex can't claim your kids first
• The superseding return: how filing your own return before the deadline can undo a joint one
• Enforcement language with deadlines and consequences for any agreement about tax debt
• Free help most people don't know exists: VITA, tax clinics, and the taxpayer advocate

⏱️ Chapters
0:00 Intro
1:00 File jointly or separately during a divorce
3:00 Nancy's clinic, and free help for tax problems
5:00 How taxes get weaponized: claiming the children
7:00 The earned income credit that follows the child
9:00 Enforcement language on tax debt, and why "when" not "if"
12:00 Tracking overnights and keeping contemporaneous records
14:00 Red flags, filing early, and the identity protection PIN
19:00 The superseding return that got a client her refund
22:00 Free filing resources: VITA, clinics, and Publication 4134

Keep going 💜
Book a free 30-minute discovery call and we'll help you map your next steps: https://beentheregotout.com/call
📘 Been There Got Out: Toxic Relationships, High-Conflict Divorce, and How to Stay Sane Under Insane Circumstances — https://www.amazon.com/dp/194627495X
📘 Been There Got Out: When Your Ex Turns the Kids Against You (our parental-alienation book) — https://www.amazon.com/dp/1967674183
🔗 Nancy Rossner at The Community Tax Law Project: https://ctlp.org/
🔗 Find a free low-income tax clinic (IRS Publication 4134): https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/p4134.pdf

🎧 More with Nancy Rossner on this podcast
Ep 168: Tax Abuse and Innocent Spouse Relief

About Been There Got Out
Chris Barry and Lisa Johnson are high-conflict divorce, custody, and co-parenting strategists, and the founders of Been There Got Out. They know these cases from the inside: both have successfully represented themselves in family court. Few attorneys have a playbook for a case like this — Chris and Lisa write yours with you, so you and your kids can get through it as unscathed as possible.