You can file jointly with your husband and file an injured spouse form, as you are not responsible to pay for your husband's child support debt. You will have to send this form in with your tax return, you can find it here: http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f8379.pdf

However, the IRS will allocate how much of the refund is yours by how much of the income on the tax return is attributable to you by your income, not by how many of the children are "yours".

If you decide not to file jointly with your husband to avoid the child support offset, you won't qualify for many of the child related tax credits and your family will most likely end up paying more tax overall than if you had filed jointly.

Back child support ... it hurts, paying that money, it sure does put a bite on the budget.

But for a moment, visualize something.
If you and your husband divorce in a couple years, and you are left with that darling boy, who needs food and clothes and daycare and medical insurance and all the other stuff ... would you not want (need!) some help from his father? Even if the father had moved on and made yet another child with another woman?

Use that wonderful Earned Income Tax Credit (money from the government!) to help pay down his back debts, before the child services people really come after him.

I agree with Reader.

Even if you don't separate from him in the future, what are you going to do if he gets arrested and jailed for non-support? You should set aside enough to bail him out so he can continue to work and support your family (bail is often set at the amount owed, BTW) instead of sitting in jail.

Even before that happens, he could be faced with losing any state issued licenses. Do you want to have to drive him everywhere, or face him having to pay fines for driving after suspension if he drives without one?

Just do a Google search for ' jail non-support ' and you'll see what different states and the federal government do to parents who don't support their children. They've become much more aggressive in child support collection efforts in the last decade.

Good luck.

You file a injured spuse form in your return so you will get your due part of the return ,the irs site has the laws and the paperwork for this ,i just did it.