Brought to you by the EveryDollar app. Start budgeting for free today. I've been married for 11 months and I found out during our joint filing with my wife that she has four years of back taxes with the IRS totaling about $48,000. And I'm looking for your advice on how to handle that. Wow, that's a bummer. So is she deceptive or incompetent or both? Without sounding derogatory, I'd probably choose the latter. Incompetent? Yes. Yeah. I mean, like, it didn't occur to her that this was a problem? No, she thought it would fix itself. Yeah. Okay. And that's why she didn't bring it up. She wasn't actually hiding it. It just was not on her radar as important. Yes. Where you're like in freak out mode and so am I. Yes. Yeah, like, ah, you're kidding. Holy Jesus. Oh, my God. The IRS of all people. Okay. So the first thing I want to pull the thread on, what else don't I know that you don't think is important? Agreed. And, um, so I had asked her this question about two weeks ago when we were filing and then this kind of, she came clean with the rest of it. Cause I saw from 2024, the tax year that there was stuff that had been penalized. And I asked her about that. And if there was anything else, she said no. And then yesterday she brought up these other things. Well I mean like three years ago I got a car repoed and I didn bring that up but they going to come to me for one of these days Right But I don think it a big deal so I thought it take care of itself so I didn bring it up I mean, what else is out there that I didn't think is important, so I didn't bring it up? Agreed. I really want to dig into that. And somehow, okay, so her reaction is not, it was kind of like a shrug, like this is just no big deal, or am I missing something? She views it as a big deal, thought she could take care of it herself. Oh, okay. So what did that involve? Because what I'm trying to do is establish your relationship pattern going forward. I agree so she brought it all to me and now I know what's on the table we looked at her credit report to identify anything else like you said so I have a view of everything that's happening now I just need to know what's the best plan of action do I pay it all as a lump sum if you have it you have it yes Okay. Yeah, write a check. Because the penalties and the interest you can't, they're ridiculous. And there's no discounting with the IRS. They're made whole 100% of the time. So, yeah, just the faster you can clean it up, the better. But I really want to make sure relationally that there's nothing else out there writing. You didn't see anything on the credit bureau, and I want to make sure that we're aligned on this is the worst financial moment of our entire lives relationally, it never gets any worse than this. Everything is better from here forward. We really need to both be on that page because, I mean, I scared that this could happen again if there not like an acknowledgement that how damaging this is to a relationship by her So if that's not the case, then you guys may need to sit down for a tune-up with a marriage counselor just to get things dialed, get some tools in both your belts to get aligned on that this is like grown-up stuff and you can't freaking ignore it and me be okay with that. I'm not going to be okay with that. And so we have to be aligned on that we together know everything and together we are aligned on every decision going forward so that there's never, I'm never going to be surprised again the rest of my life if I'm you. I'm not okay with surprises of this type. And so that, and I'm just, go ahead. We just, we have a, we have our first baby coming in two months, so it's kind of all falling on top of me right now. Yeah. Well, and so we're negotiating with the lady in her third trimester too. This is just really not profitable. Yeah. Wow. Okay. Well, at some point in this process, and it may not be anytime soon, given that last piece of information, if there weren't a baby on the way in any moment, I would be in the marriage counselor's office for a tune-up to make sure I was aligned. But I may wait until the baby's four months old. but she needs to, you guys need to have a conversation of this, that she clearly without you shaming her or yelling at her or something like that, but this is just, we're not going to function this way going forward. Okay. And then I'd write a check and pay it off because if it comes back again, after you write a check and pay it off and something else pops up or she goes and does something else and forgets to tell you because it's not important, but it is important. I can handle it myself or whatever the bull crap narrative was on this thing. And it was bull crap. then we don't want a repeat of this. We want to heal this broken narrative Does that make sense Yeah and one of the things I was going to lean into is is if you guys aren already doing combined finances that needs to happen today So that again, as we work through the relational stuff here, the financial stuff is also completely, everything is on the table. This is a tough feeling, you know, to have, but I agree with Dave. I'd stroke the check today. You don't want to be dealing with the IRS on this. And listen, it's going to suck writing that check, but it's going to suck worse not to deal with it and to try to string this response out with a baby on the way. No, no. Don't do that. I'd take care of it immediately. Get on the phone with them, find out what it is and clear that. But we have to make sure that there's no repeat. Oh, that's the big thing here. And so, and transparency does that. And so if you got fully transparent and then you're looking over her income and her withholding and the two of you are doing your taxes together and then there is a shortfall, then it's now your fault because you're, you got your fingers in there with it okay and to ken's point when you combined everything and then it still happens then now it's on you so um that's the whole process that's that's where i would go but the big thing is this financial problems are never the problem they're always a symptom of something else going on so you got to go down to ground okay what's the problem what's causing this and what's causing her to not deal with this family of origin they were you know we were ashamed to talk about money or every time we talked about money daddy yelled so i don't want to talk about money because i'm afraid you'll yell or i don't know whatever the bullcrap is that's under there but there's bullcrap under there i promise you this is crazy and um because it's it's not five hundred dollars it's fifty thousand dollars that's not an oops okay five hundreds and oops, uh, 50,000 is bothering me. Yeah. Man. And what, what a setup though. I mean, with a baby coming in two months. Wow. Create your free every dollar budget today. The simplest way to budget for your life.
