A Legal and Exploratory Empirical Analysis of Changes to Innocent Spouse Law

Abstract

ABSTRACT This paper studies recent changes to innocent spouse law instituted by Rev. Proc. 2013-34. This rule change explicitly addresses issues with innocent spouse rulings, while also making innocent spouse law more flexible. I use legal and empirical methodologies to study 81 innocent spouse cases, and find that the recent rule changes have significantly modified the impact of various factors. Changes to some factors were stated objectives of the rule change; for example, abuse now has an increased impact on innocent spouse rulings. However, some changes appear to be side effects of the revised law's increased flexibility. Specifically, the health factor was unchanged by Rev. Proc. 2013-34, but appears to have gained prominence due to greater flexibility in innocent spouse law. Overall, my findings show that judges can now decide a case based on various criteria, rather than being bound primarily by taxpayer knowledge—as was the case pre-Rev. Proc. 2013-34.