My spouse owes taxes from before we were married. Am I responsible for their tax debt?

If your spouse incurred tax debt before your marriage, you are generally not personally liable for that pre-marriage debt. However, there are important nuances. If you file a joint return with your spouse for current tax years, your joint refund can be offset to pay your spouse's prior individual debt. To prevent this, you can file as 'Married Filing Separately,' though this often results in a higher combined tax bill. If you did file jointly and your refund was taken, you can file Form 8379 (Injured Spouse Allocation) to recover your portion of the refund. This is different from Innocent Spouse Relief (Form 8857), which applies when your spouse understated taxes on a joint return. For tax debt incurred during the marriage on joint returns, both spouses are jointly and severally liable, meaning the IRS can collect the full amount from either spouse. If you're in this situation, Innocent Spouse Relief may apply if you didn't know about or benefit from the understatement.