Spouses filing joint returns are both responsible for their tax obligations. Recognizing the potential unfairness of holding spouses jointly and severally liable, the Internal Revenue Service offers “innocent spouse” relief in limited circumstances. When the IRS rejects a claim for “innocent spouse” status, the requesting spouse has 90 days to seek judicial review of that adverse decision.
In United States v. Wong, 135 S. Ct. 1625 (2015), the U.S. Supreme Court held that a litigant’s failure to comply with a jurisdictional filing deadline will “deprive a court of all authority to hear a case,” regardless of any equitable considerations. Given such “harsh consequences,” the government bears the burden of proving that Congress “clearly stated” its intention to promulgate a jurisdictional, rather than claim-processing, rule.
