The Truth about innocent spouse claims
This site offers no financial or tax advice; it is just my story.
The Truth about innocent spouse claims
This site offers no financial or tax advice; it is just my story.
my innocent spouse claim Journey
The Beginning.
In May of 2006, I married a woman, who owned what seemed like a successful hair salon. In 2007, I discovered that she had not been paying her income or self-employment taxes for many years and did not plan on paying in the future. I did everything humanly possible for the next few years to convince her to pay the taxes on her business, but she did not want to pay taxes. This caused a huge problem in our marriage. I paid all of the bills the whole time we were married, so I had very little extra income. She had told me many times that if I divorced her, I would never see my kids again. I called an IRS hotline and asked what I should do. I was told that if I filed my taxes as married, but filing separately, that I would never be responsible for her self-employment or income taxes. That ended up not being true. The IRS would go on to hold me responsible for all of her taxes no matter how I filed (even after our divorce). More on that later. I spent the next few years looking for a CPA who would help me file separately. I could not find one. Every enrolled CPA I spoke with told me that the IRS would collect her taxes from me no matter how I filed. That made no sense to me at the time. I did not make anywhere near as much as my wife, so there was no way for me to pay the taxes on her business, and she continued to incur tax bills every month that were more than I could reasonably pay, so paying her back taxes would not have accomplished anything. They advised me to file as married because the overall tax bill would be less, but still more than I could afford to pay. I fired a couple of CPAs because they sounded crazy to me at the time for disagreeing with published IRS policy and tax law. I finally relented and let a CPA file as married (just to get my taxes done), because according to every enrolled CPA on the planet, this would still result in me going to prison (by this time, my wife had not been paying for years), but would make my debt not as large, because when a debt is separated by the IRS, both parties owe the full amount. I got a legal separation and moved out. I had to leave my daughter behind because I had nothing. I slept in my car until I could save enough to pay rent at an apartment. I was not ever allowed to talk about my tax issues in family court (the judge scolded me and told me that this is not IRS court), so I was prohibited from stating the reason that I needed a divorce (or to get custody of my kids) in court. I had to list "irreconcilable differences" as the reason, although my wife could have easily paid her taxes. My wife was very angry at me for divorcing her but still was not paying her taxes.
Initial Loss.
In 2012, the IRS left a letter on my door stating that I owed $103,000 in my ex-wife's self-employment taxes. I mistakenly thought that there was some kind of misunderstanding, because I believed that nobody would put me in prison for refusing to pay taxes I could not legally be told about until they were due and could not afford. (There is no law in WA state that would compel a spouse to disclose her finances to her husband). In my first IRS meeting about this, I was told by Diana Salazar of the IRS that unless I could meet a payment schedule that I could not afford (the math just didn't pan out), I would go to prison for refusing to pay. I could not morally agree to a payment plan that required me to pay more than I needed to pay my bills and child support (as well as paying a lawyer to help me get my kids back), so I had no choice but to threaten to quit my job, since I was going to jail anyway. I told Diana that I would quit my lucrative job and live in the woods on squirrels and berries before I paid taxes on income that I had no control over. Diana advised me to file an "innocent spouse claim" form with the IRS before my prison sentence started.
My first innocent spouse claim hearing was presided over by Cate Van Meter out of Kansas City. I spent weeks gathering the evidence that I had always paid my taxes because I thought that the IRS did not understand my situation. At the hearing, Cate stopped me and told me that she already knew that I had always paid the taxes on income that I had the legal right to know about. There are several factors that IRS agents must consider when approving or denying an innocent spouse claim. Only one of them is knowledge of the income that the taxes are due on. Some of the other factors have to do with how much money you earn and whether or not the IRS (who freely admit being unable to do basic math in writing) feels that you can afford to pay. There have to be more factors in your favor than against to win an innocent spouse claim. She also told me that I would be going to prison because I was only legally separated and not divorced. I lost my claim and was found guilty of refusing to pay other peoples' taxes, which I had no legal way of knowing about, and could not afford to pay. This (the presumption of guilt with no evidence or indicators of any crime) is considered to be a human rights violation by the United Nations Council on Human Rights. I asked Cate if they were planning on collecting any of these taxes from the person whose sole proprietorship incurred the taxes. Cate told me that the collection of the full amount of her her past income and self-employment taxes were between her and the IRS and had nothing to do with me, just like the collection of the full amount of her taxes from me had nothing to do with her. To the best of my knowledge, they have never collected a dime from her in the last 20 plus years.
Justice for the Win; but wait...
Despite having almost nothing to my name, I hired a tax attorney. He filed for an appeal and got my case moved to Seattle, where I could attend in person. I converted my legal separation into a legal divorce, which was also difficult (especially representing myself again). I won my innocent spouse claim appeal using the exact same evidence that I had used when I lost my original claim; the only difference was that I was legally divorced instead of only legally separated. My tax attorney told me never to give or receive any money or assets to or from my ex-wife (unless ordered to by a judge), or I might risk losing my innocent spouse status. This infuriated my ex wife. She thought that it was going to be a one and done thing where they forgave me for her past taxes and we moved on with our lives in whatever way we would choose. This became her basis for hating me ever since (I cannot give her money and have not been able to since my appeals victory).
It took a very long time for the IRS to come up with an acceptable number to both parties. According to a letter written by my IRS appeals officer, Beth Heritage, The math department at the IRS could not do the math to calculate what I owed. They tried multiple times (the longer they delayed, the more interest they could collect). My tax attorney finally told me that I was just going to have to live with some amount of fraud and pay a number higher than agreed upon at my appeals hearing because the IRS would never get the math right. I called the IRS and offered to teach addition and subtraction to their people ( I am a college instructor with experience teaching much more advanced math), but was flatly refused. Interestingly, while the IRS freely admitted in writing that they could not do the math to calculate what my attorney agreed that I would pay at the conclusion of my appeals hearing, they thought they were spot on with the math to calculate the interest (the interest was a percentage of the number they could not figure out). I ended up paying a lot more than what was agreed upon, according to my tax attorney just to make it be over. By this time, between trying to process that it is not only legal for the government to knowingly put innocent taxpayers in jail in the United States, and that it happens all the time, my Stress was pretty severe.
After I won my appeal, the IRS sent me a tax bill for $6705 for $24,817 of income from a company that I had never heard of called Transfirst Holdings. The IRS told me in writing that they had a collective daydream that I claimed $17,465 worth of income from Transfirst. I did not; it was just their imaginations. I called the IRS and asked them if they were still billing me for my ex-wife's taxes even after my divorce, appeals victory, and considering that this was in a year that I was legally separated and had filed as married but filing separately, which they promised in writing they would not do. I was told that they could not disclose whose taxes they were billing me for (for tax year 2013), because that would violate right to privacy laws, since the person whose taxes I was being held responsible for might not want me to know about their income.
It is Illegal for the IRS to Tell You Whose Taxes They are Billing You For.
Out of sheer desperation, I asked my CPA if there was any way to find out who could have received $24,817 of income from a company called Transfirst Holdings in 2013, despite federal privacy protection laws which prohibit me from knowing the source of tax bills I get from the IRS. Since my CPA had also worked with my ex-wife, she knew that Transfirst was the name of the credit card processing company that my ex-wife used at her business. I asked my ex-wife if she had a 1099 from a company called Transfirst showing $24,817 in income for 2013, and she said she did. I asked her for a copy of that 1099 and she gave it to me. It listed her maiden name (Kelly Butterfield) as the sole payee. My last name is Vice. Before this, I did not know that my ex wife had been claiming income under her maiden name.
U.S. Government Helps?
In 2015, I wrote to my U.S.Senator, Suzan Del Bene. I asked her why the IRS lied to me about not holding me responsible for my ex-wife's taxes in a year that I filed separately. On Oct. 30, 2015, Suzan Del Bene's office made an inquiry into my case to the IRS Commissioner. Her office also asked why I was being billed for someone else's taxes, and why they refused to tell me whose taxes. On Nov. 27, 2015, they received a reply from Brenda Dial of the U.S. Treasury in writing. Brenda decided to lie to my Elected officials on behalf of the Commissioner and told Suzan that the IRS compared the information on my return to third party information they received showing me as the payee and identified a discrepancy for tax year 2013. Brenda said this knowing that there was no discrepancy on my 2013 taxes. Suzan and her staff bought that lie hook, line and sinker.
On Dec. 3, 2015, I wrote to the White House and asked them to intervene in my case. I received a letter on Jan. 7, 2016 from the Tax Advocate Service, stating that Barack Obama had requested that an agent from the TAS look into my case. That TAS agent, Holly Morse, wrote me a letter stating that she needed some time to investigate. She decided to lie and wrote a letter dated Feb. 8, 2016, which falsely states that the bill I received for someone else's taxes was a result of a discrepancy between what I reported on my tax return and what third party information the IRS received in tax year 2013.
Both Brenda Dial, a head examiner at the IRS, and Holly Morse claim to have believed independently of each other that there was a discrepancy on my 2013 taxes (based on a 1099 they both looked at, naming my ex wife as the sole payee issued by a company I had never heard of). Brenda is a head examiner who was asked to look into my case by The President of the United States. Holly was asked to look into my case by the IRS commissioner, who was asked by a voting member of the Ways and Means Committee. These are the best and brightest IRS agents at the IRS, by all accounts.
The confrontation about the hard truth.
I called Brenda Dial. I asked her why she had lied in writing to a voting member of the Ways and Means committee about my case. She told me that because I reported the exact same number on my tax return as third parties had reported that they had paid me in 2013, that left her people very confused. She told me that they ran the 1099 naming my ex-wife (her maiden name) as the payee (with her SSN on it) through a computer, and it favored billing me. She went on to say that this was reviewed by an actual IRS agent who verified that it was my name on the 1099 (despite the fact that it was not), and that I failed to report all of my earnings in 2013. I did not fail to report all of my earnings in 2013. I told her that nobody is stupid enough to firstly not know that a number (what I claimed as income in 2013) subtracted by itself (the exact same number was reported to have been paid to me by my employers) is not zero, and secondly that the letters "Kelly Butterfield" do not spell "Jason Vice" on the 1099 she had investigated. I told her that I suspected that her department was just browsing the internet all day and getting paid for it. She assured me that this is not true, and they actually are that stupid. She asked me if there was anything she could do for me, and I told her to write to the Ways and Means committee and clarify that the reason she sent a letter stating that there was a discrepancy on my 2013 return was because there was never a discrepancy on my 2013 return and that her staff could not read or do math. She told me that she could not do that, as she had already written a letter to them stating that there was a discrepancy, but that she would write me a letter personally. I got the same commitment from Holly Morse and they both followed through. Nobody ever answered my original question about why the IRS lied to me and told me that they would not hold me liable for my ex-wife's taxes in a tax year when I filed separately. If I had tried to use my right to remain silent, I would have gone to prison without any evidence whatsoever of me having committed a crime. Again. This was starting to get really old by now. I filed charges with the TIGTA (The Inspector General of the Treasury) against the IRS commissioner.
I had to prove IRS incompetence to buy a house.
In 2016, I started the process of buying my first house. About one week before closing, the bank emailed me and asked about the $89,000 of federal tax liens on my record. I sent them the different sets of letters written by Holly Morse and Brenda Dial, stating that there both was and was not a discrepancy on my 2013 tax return. I told them what Brenda Dial had told me; that the IRS is incompetent to know if there is a discrepancy on my return in any given tax year, even when directed to do so by the IRS Commissioner and the President of the United States, because they collectively cannot do math or read English. The mortgage underwriters at Key bank seemed unfazed and told me that they see situations like that all the time, and gave me a zero down, no PMI loan on my first house, despite there being $89.000 of federal tax liens on my record. I have used this method with different mortgage lenders to purchase two houses as of this writing.
I was watching my kids suffer.
Upon winning my innocent spouse claim appeal, my ex-wife and her mother immediately started blackmailing me by refusing to let me see my kids unless I paid them (right after my tax attorney advised me to not give her or her family money unless ordered to in court). They both also told me that the second I gave them any money outside of a judges' order, they would call the IRS and report me for violating the terms of my innocent spouse appeal victory. It was a no-win situation for me. I didn't want to go to jail, but I wanted to see my kids. It was very tough. I had been working two jobs since 2013 and it was becoming unsustainable. She kept asking for more and her threats started becoming more delusional and aggressive. She started telling our kids that I cheated on her when I refused to give her money outside of child support. I patiently waited for the IRS to put her in prison for refusing to pay her federal taxes for many years, but that never happened. The IRS continued to allow her to evade her federal taxes. She has had plenty of money to terrorize me and our kids. In 2019, after several unsuccessful attempts in court to see my kids, I fired my family law attorney and started representing myself. My ex-wife said that she could not afford our kids, even with the court ordered child support, but it took some convincing for the judge to understand (who wondered why I did not just give my ex more money without a judge's order, which I was not allowed to explain). I got primary custody of my kids after several failed attempts and judicial scoldings for refusing to be blackmailed.
It is also illegal for me to get my youngest child vaccinated against anything In WA. The reason is that it takes only one parents' written permission to obtain a vaccine exemption from a medical provider who sells them. My ex got hers from Purity Health in Everett, WA without my knowledge or consent. It takes both parents to sign a for to get vaccinations in WA, though. These laws were designed to ensure that people who believe in medical science will always have to take a back seat to vaccine deniers. My youngest daughter got whooping cough when she was 9 and was coughing so hard that she was throwing up for three months.
Income taxes are voluntary for those who incur them, but not for those that the IRS selects to pay.
Despite threatening me with prison for refusing to pay my ex-wife's income and self-employment taxes, the IRS has made no meaningful attempt to collect that money from her. One of the five Inspector General Agents assigned to my case explained why. He told me that in order to collect from tax evaders, they would have to assign an agent to follow them around, then go get a judge every time they saw the evader accepting cash as a payment. I, on the other hand respond immediately to threats of sending me to prison and sending my kids into foster care. I have a history of agreeing to pay partial taxes for other people's income to stay out of prison, so I am an easy target. I pointed out to the agent that if they continue to help tax evaders and threaten to jail taxpayers, eventually there would be no paychecks for IRS or Treasury employees, because that comes from taxpayers. Nobody at the U.S. Treasury understands this logic. By not collecting from her they have encouraged her to spend the money that anyone else would have to pay in taxes to try to destroy the lives of me, my current wife and our children by making false allegations of sexual abuse, which have been investigated by CPS. CPS found out that the abuse was happening at my ex-wife's house, so they dropped the investigation. I was told by CPS and told that the matter was referred to the police, but the prosecutor's office told me that did not ever happen.
Rape check for our 4 year old, drug testing for both
On Sep. 1, 2020, my ex told me that she was going to get her kids away from whoever was molesting our 4 year old (she accused me, but it was actually her cousin Lorenzo). On August 27, 2020, my ex wife took our 4 year old out of daycare without my consent or knowledge. She took her to Children's hospital in Seattle for a rape test. I got a call from the daycare saying my daughter was gone, then later, a call from the hospital asking me if I knew where my 4 year old was. I told them I did not and was in full panic mode at the courthouse, and Christina Hunter, a social worker at the hospital called the police. This was during Covid, and when I got to to hospital, they had my daughter playing on the floor of the ER. CPS started an investigation into my ex's allegations of child rape. I was not found guilty, but as soon as I discovered on August 8, 2021 that my daughter's cousin had been sexually molesting her for a long time at my ex's house (I caught him touching my naked daughter's breasts and vagina), which my ex freely admitted to in writing on August 9, 2021, both CPS and the police stopped their investigations. I was also investigated for giving my daughters drugs. When my ex admitted in court that she had given her prescription drugs to our daughter, all investigations into the drugging of our daughters stopped.
On August 14, 2021, My ex took our daughters to the ER at Swedish hospital to falsely accuse me of drugging our kids, but she kept it a secret from me. I did not find out until September, when I recieved a notice that my ex had gone through my health insurance for this. I asked my ex dozens of times what was wrong with our kids that required an ER visit, but was ignored. I called Swedish and asked them why my daughters were at the ER and what the aftercare might be. They told me that it is illegal for a hospital to tell me about the aftercare of an emergency room visit in Washington State that my children went on. I had to fill out an FOIA request at the hospital in order to find out that they were drug tested there (results were negative). The hospital paperwork clearly states that my ex went there making false accusations about me. My ex wife did this because she was filing a review of the child support I paid and knew I would be spending all of my time trying to get information on the reason for the ER visit to find out what was wrong with my daughters and very little time defending myself against the lies made up about me.
The police help (the tax evaders)
On Dec. 13, 2020, my ex-wife did not return my kids after her court ordered visitation. She would not let me see or speak to them. This was a violation of WA State law number RCW 9A.40.060 (Criminal Custodial Interference). I called 911, but the police refused to help because I am the primary, custodial parent and I was trying to excersise my legal right to see my kids on my court ordered custody time. In Snohomish County, WA, the police will involve themselves in what they call a "custody dispute" (My ex-wife and I signed the custody agreement without attorneys one year prior to this) only if a non custodial parent calls on the custodial parents' court ordered custody day. Whan a primary, custodial parent calls 911 because he has no way to see or speak to his minor children on his court ordered custody days, the police do absolutely nothing except say it is against policy to intervene in custody disputes. I was told that every time my ex does not want to give our kids back on my custody time and conceals them from me for extended periods, that is her prerogative, and I must file a writ of habeus corpus in Snohomish County Court. A writ of habeus corpus is a legal document that requires the authorities to explain why they are imprisoning people (in this case, my 4 year old and 14 year old daughters), and if they cannot explain, to release them. Very few people win them. I won mine on Dec. 18, 2020 and was allowed to collect my daughters from CPS custody immediately. The police were (and still are) very confused. This is because the police and politicians in my city, county and state are extremely discriminatory against parents who pay their taxes and obey the law (just like the IRS is). As a result of my habuses corpus hearing, a Snohomish County Judge forced the County Sherriff's Office to go get my abducted children even though the police were very much against that. My kids were transferred to CPS custody while a judge decided whether or not I could continue to see my kids on my court ordered custody days. The process takes about one week and costs thousands of dollars each time. Once I realized that the Snohomish County police would never go on a call for me when my kids were missing, I wrote to the City council where I live in Snohomish. I explained to them that because the police will not do welfare checks for primary custodial parents on their custody days, we are forced to use writ of habeus corpus to see our kids. This is very expensive, and if you multiply the cost of it by half of the number of single parents in our city, it far exceeds th cost of contracting out our police force to the County. Chief Rob Palmer of the Snohomish Police (who is also a Snohomish County Deputy), sent me an unsolicited, rude email , where he lied about my case, (and copied the Snohomish City Council), stating that the 911 calls I made as a primary custodial parent when my kids were illegally kept from seeing or speaking to me on my court ordered custody days was "reciprocal" against my ex-wife. I only called 911 because I wanted to see or at least speak to my kids on my court ordered time with them, but he disputes that for no obvious reason. He went on to say that the Mayor of Snohomish, Linda Redmon, told him to do that. Ms. Redmon denied that claim over the phone, but refused to deny it in writing. The police have been on swatting calls to my house based on false allegations many, many times. On Dec. 7, 2020, my ex called 911 and told them she wanted them to enforce something that is not a law and also not a judges order. (she wanted the police to check on our kids instead of calling me). They came to my house immediately and took my teenage daughter outside alone in the front yard for several minutes. My older daughter is an adult now and hates the police because of this. Both Jon Lovick, a WA State Senator, and Sam Low, the Snohomish County leader, told me it is not possible for the police to go on every kidnapping call that comes in to the county, and that they are powerless to do anything about it. I filed charges against all the police officers involved with the U.S. DOJ and the FBI, but because of the thin blue line, nothing was done. I was even excluded from the report by the Office of Professional Accountability. I had to fill out an FOIA request to see the police report and the report from internal affairs. In the internal affairs report, Deputy Adams stated that I wanted to file charges against all police for going on 911 calls. He also lied in the OPA report and said that it is both illegal and against department policy for the police to do welfare checks on kids who are being concealed from the primary custodial parent on that parent's court ordered custody days. Jon Lovick has confirmed that neither of those things are true.
Division of child support fabricates evidence
During our divorce, my ex-wife and I both made written, sworn statements that she decided to move the kids in with me in early 2017 because she could not afford to keep them. She filled out a form to change school districts to where I lived. I also made a statement to DCS on 11-12-2019 stating that my kids came to live with me at the beginning of 2017. Remle Wilkerson of DCS told me that they could not find that statement, but I found it easily with a simple FOIA request to DCS. My ex's mother also submitted a statement that the kids came to live with me in 2017. In 2021, DCS told me that I had to prove the statements that I, my ex, and her mother all made about when my daughters came to live with me. DCS lied and said I made a statement that my kids came to live with me in 2018, when in fact, I said 2017. Teresa Owens would later call my ex and tell her that if she changed her sworn testimony to match their assertion that I made a statement that our kids came to live with me in 2018, DCS would garnish my wages and give her thousands of dollars of my money because I did not pay her child support in 2017 (because I was the sole provider for my kids in 2017). They excused me from paying child support for 2018 and 2019 because my ex did not dispute DCS claim that the kids came to live with me in 2018. My ex also did not dipute my two claims or her one sworn claim that the girls came to live with me in 2017 until after a second manager review of my case, when Teresa called her with her offer of my money for changing her sworn testimony. I have a letter from Teresa Owens, the DCS supervisor who convinced my ex to change her sworn testimony, saying she knew the whole time that my kids came to live with me in 2017.