Divorced and surprised at retrospective personal taxation implications. The taxman has entered the bedroom.

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Bruised

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I'm keen to know whether my experience with Revenue is typical, and indicative of a change of approach. I do not believe that it is explicitly provided for in tax law, but if I am wrong in that, I would appreciate if someone can explain.

While married we were jointly assessed for income tax. We are now divorced. Perhaps we are unusual in having no maintenance agreement but, for whatever reason, Revenue is now suggesting that we did not meet the standard for treatment as married, not only in the year of our divorce, but also in the year prior. I am honestly bewildered. They keep asking for a "date of separation". We did not have a legal separation. They are not accepting the date on which we ceased living together (nor our divorce date, which was later) Vague and varying references abound in the increasingly tone deaf, upsetting and frankly rude correspondence, but nothing consistent emerges as to what constitutes separation for their purposes. I suppose there may be a clause that "the inspector must be satisfied" but when you get a different person every time, it does feel a bit Kafka-esque.

Obviously, from a family law point of view, we were separated for two years before our divorce. (For those who don't know, you do actually actually have to tell the lawyer the last time you had sexual relations. Bad enough in divorce court, but at least understandable in that context.) Like a lot of people, we had to stay in the house for practical reasons (in separate bedrooms) until shortly before we got our court date. As provided for in family law, we did do lots of things together during this separation time, notably in the co-parenting category but also in terms of shared finances. Legally, we were married. We had enough to be thinking about without reflecting on whether we needed to be rejigging our personal taxation arrangements. But now Revenue imply we should have, and they reject everything I send explaining that we were still married.

All this leaves me to wonder: Does the taxman actually come into the bedroom now?

And, if we don't count as married for tax purposes because our sexual relationship was over, would that standard also apply to couples who did not go on to divorce? How would the Tax Inspector satisfy himself that the criterion was met? (Obviously I'm joking. But its really not funny, is it?)

I know that this probably has no real status in the event of dispute, but citizens' information does at least indicate that there is no general assumption that you cant be separated for family law purposes and married for tax purposes. I am not allowed to post a link but remove some spaces and have a look at https:// www. citizensinformation .ie/en/money-and-tax/tax/income-tax-credits-and-reliefs/separation-divorce-and-tax-reliefs/ to see what I mean.

Financially I suppose it may not make much difference but I have found the whole challenge by Revenue to be really odd, to say nothing of shockingly intrusive and emotionally triggering. If anyone can help me to understand this, and whether it is worth challenging/engaging a professional to challenge, I would appreciate your input. Obviously, if this happened to you I'd be particularly interested to know where it ended up.

(Thank you, and sorry if this has been asked before. I did do an electronic search, but I did not see anything about this particular aspect of divorce.)
 
If I understand correctly that really stinks.
You'd imagine that what should apply would be:
Legal separation then a later Divorce => separate assessment from date of legal separation.
Divorce without prior legal separation => separate assessment from date of divorce.
 
Did you give revenue the same date of separation as you gave for your divorce application? To be divorced you need to be separated for two years so I am not surprised that revenue would take the date of your divorce and go back 2 years.

And what is the issue financially if revenue use a date of divorce - 2 years? Your post is very vague on this. You are currently divorced, you have satisfied the court that you had separated from your spouse for the legally required two years despite sharing the same address. Therefore for revenue purposes you can no longer be jointly assessed.
 
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Bruised said:
(For those who don't know, you do actually actually have to tell the lawyer the last time you had sexual relations. Bad enough in divorce court, but at least understandable in that context.)
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Not my experience during judicial separation or divorce.

I presume that you're not saying or implying that Revenue asked you specifically about this but rather, more generally, about when you started living separate lives (even if that was while still living under the same roof) which is relevant in both the family law and taxation contexts?

Year of separation, divorce or dissolution of civil partnership

This page outlines how your income is taxed in the year you separate, divorce or have your civil partnership dissolved
www.revenue.ie www.revenue.ie
 
Clamball said:
Did you give revenue the same date of separation as you gave for your divorce application? To be divorced you need to be separated for two years so I am not surprised that revenue would take the date of your divorce and go back 2 years.

And what is the issue financially if revenue use a date of divorce - 2 years? Your post is very vague on this. You are currently divorced, you have satisfied the court that you had separated from your spouse for the legally required two years despite sharing the same address. Therefore for revenue purposes you can no longer be jointly assessed.
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Clamball you are making the assumption that the definition of separation for divorce purposes is the same as the for tax purposes. I am not sure that that is necessarily the case. But I hear you. You think it that it is. I wonder why Revenue do not state this anywhere on their information pages.
 
@ClubMan and @Brendan Burgess have given you great links there on how it works. Both refer to date of separation. The easiest way for you to prove date of separation, if there is a conflict, is the date you gave the courts. Why should revenue have to define it for you?

Can you clearly tell us what is the financial problem? Is there a lot of money involved?

And tell us what revenue have a specific issue with, are you and your ex spouse giving different dates of separation? Have you given revenue several different dates yourself?
 
@Bruised is in an unwanted tax situation and feels Revenue is not treating the issue fairly on several fronts. My tuppenceha’penny worth is to lodge an immediate appeal with Revenue outlining all issues. This is not an inexpensive process. Likely a qualified tax accountant is required, then lots of patience, and parking of most worry. Revenue knows everything about the applicant, the applicant doesn’t even know the name(s) of the Revenue people dealing with the situation.

I write the foregoing with zero knowledge of any amounts involved and almost scant knowledge of the entire situation. But, being a good tax payer over the years must count for something.
 
Bruised said:
Clamball you are making the assumption that the definition of separation for divorce purposes is the same as the for tax purposes. I am not sure that that is necessarily the case. But I hear you. You think it that it is. I wonder why Revenue do not state this anywhere on their information pages.
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I think the default assumption wouldbe that Revenue have the same understanding of what amounts to separation as everyone else — certainly, as other state agencies. Only if there is a specific definition set out in the Taxes Act and used for tax purposes would I expect to find commentary on this on the information pages.

Tl;dr: if you're told the courts that you've been separate since X date, you can expect Revenue to take that at face value unless you have some reason to think that Revenue have their own unique understanding of marital separation.
 
Thank you for your replies.
I have in fact attempted to respond to your points in earlier draft responses but, as a new user I feel foul of some restrictions, seemingly because my original quote was included in your replies.
 
@Bruised

I’m sympathetic.

But you are speaking in vague generalities.

If you give us specifics (nothing that would identify you or spouse) it would help a lot.
 
I feel the need to come back and close this off. Not least because someone else might need to know.

Even if there was no formal separation, Revenue, based on family law, assume that a divorced couple were separated for two years prior to divorce. As so many commenters have said, that may be fair enough, but I persist in my view that there is no firm legal basis for it. My own case did not involve a massive financial difference but there are plenty of cases where couples stay together for practical reasons and, I still argue, if they are legally married, they are entitled to be taxed as married if that is beneficial for them. If they divorce, say, four years later, I would contend that Revenue should not be able to claw back more than two years of the benefits they were entitled to as a married couple. I can see that plenty disagree with on that, but we all know that there are plenty of people living in emotionally dead marriages who share finances and benefit financially from being legally married, and nobody is coming after them. The simple act of, later, deciding to divorce should not make it OK to go back and take those benefits away for more than two years. In my opinion. Those financial benefits may indeed be the only reason they stayed legally married for as long as they did. What's wrong with that?

As to the specific date of separation, Revenue invite the divorced person to state that via their ticketing system, which I find intrusive, for reasons which I have stated. I have learned that not all judges in the family court ask the same deeply personal question to establish "the date". So for some perhaps it is not so intrusive, and good luck to them. Some people may have a very clear date in mind (infidelity, or whatever) but I suspect that the majority do not, and that is why I am coming back to say that Revenue cannot look inside a marriage and demand to know when your heart broke, because it is none of their business.

While Revenue say you should tell them as soon as you separate, I contend that, for a couple who are living separate lives under the same roof, that is not enforceable, (some may later reconcile and, even for those who don't, they really do have enough to be worrying about. Believe it or not, it is hard to even get out of bed some days when your life is falling apart around you). So just let Revenue know when you are divorced and they can take it from there.

I want to thank everyone who responded with kindness. The others are presumably lucky enough to have no idea how painful, confusing and dauntingly complex are the outworkings of the end of marriage. Revenue are not the only ones who give people no help as they navigate this most challenging time.
 
I'm going to add to this as I am recently divorced. Revenue took a random date that my ex-wife told them we separated.
No amount of arguing with them, or lack of proof deterred them from sticking to the date they were told. And of course they came after me for the benefits as a married couple back to that date. I gave up trying to argue my case, as I just wanted done with it all.
 
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