[tammywhite]

A person filed taxes as married, the couple was not married but had intentions of getting married. Since then, the engagement is off, she has been told that she is legally married in the state of Oklahoma and that she has to get a divorce.
Can she do an annullment instead of a full blown divorce?

[excon]

Hello tammy:

Regardless of what she was told, if she never got married, she doesn't need either an annulment or a divorce.

excon

[excon]

Hello again, tammy:

I don't understand what you mean validated. I can't show you a law that would say if you've never been married, you don't need a divorce. They don't make laws like that.

All I can tell you, is if you've NEVER been married, you don't need to be divorced. To me, that makes a GREAT DEAL OF SENSE, and the law is pretty sensible. I guess not to you. Oh, well.

excon

[ScottGem]

Same as who's?

To be legally married one has to have someone with the authority to perform weddings officiate at a ceremony and sign a marriage license along with the bride and groom and two witnesses. Without a legally obtained license theer is no marriage and no need for divorce or annulment.

By filing a tax form as married before the wedding you are committing a fraud. That does not make you married. The IRS has NO authority to perform marriages.

If anyone is saying otherwise they are either BSing you or they know nothing about the law.

What this couple NEEDS to do is file amended returns immediately before ethe IRS audits them. They do NOT need to seek annulment or divirce since there is no marriage to end.

[Fr_Chuck]

Filing a tax return as married when you are not married, is merely tax fraud, not making you legally married. You do need to go back and file an admended tax return. You can not legally file "married" unless you are married on the last day of the year for the year you are filing.

A tax return does not get you married, to be married, you would have had to go get a marriage license, and have a judge, minister or other approved person marry you.

Someone is giving you false and bad advice.

[tammywhite]

New user so I'm not sure if this is the correct place to respond or not. I agree, No marriage, No Marriage License, No Divorce needed, However, several Tax people have told me that once you claim "married" in order to file the following year, you must claim "Divorced" Fraud, yes I agree too, however if the IRS does not find that she claimed married in 2006 and Single in 2007 for 7 years, she would need to prove she was divorced in the year 2006-2007. She has contacted an attorney and was told the same thing. The "husband" is in the Pen and did not want the breakup, she is afraid that he will give her a hard time and maybe claim money owed to him. He gets out in a few months... IRS said there is no amendment that she can do to fix her screwup so... I was looking for someone to tell me 1. if the IRS is wrong and an amendment will do the trick. Or 2. since an annullment is cheaper than a divorce, what are the qualifers she will need to meet?
Thanks for all of your input

[excon]

Hello again, tammy:

The IRS cannot dictate that a marriage exists where one never did exist.

No, she doesn't need to prove she was divorced. She needs to clear up the fraud - not perpetuate it. If she does, it will stop there.

excon

[ScottGem]

I've moved your question to the Tax forum. One of our tax experts are more likely to see it here and be able to give you more specifics on the tax issues.

As Chuck said, you can only file as married if the wedding occurred on or before 12/31 of the tax year. Since you file in the next year to file as married when no wedding was performed is fraud. I really can't see how committing a second fraud (filing as Divorced) corrects this issue. The key here is I think BOTH parties have to submit amended returns. If only one does that could cause an issue.

But to obtain either an annulment or a divorce, one has to show a marriage existed. Since none existed you can't get either.

As the Bard said;
Oh what a tangled web we weave when first we practice to decieve!

[macksmom]

I was looking for someone to tell me 1. if the IRS is wrong and an admendment will do the trick. or 2. since an annullment is cheaper than a divorce, what are the qualifers she will need to meet?
Thanks for all of your input

An amendment is the ONLY thing she can do.

She wasn't married!

Any court is going to look at her like she's nuts if she goes in and says "Hi I was never married but I need an anulment"
If you were never married you Can't get an anullment!

[macksmom]

New user so I'm not sure if this is the correct place to respond or not.

Oh... and yes... posting to your question is how you respond :)

[AtlantaTaxExpert]

Okay, guys, let's cool off here.

Tammy MAY have been considered married under Oklahoma's common law marriage statutes, which varies from state to state.

She needs to find out if, under Oklahoma law, she was considered legally married. If she meets the common law definition of marriage, that's good enough for the IRS. I had several clients who were "common-law" married in Georgia before Georgia changed the law in 1998.

As to whether a divorce is necessary, I cannot answer that question.

These issues can be resolved with a simple phone call to the local court house.

[ScottGem]

OK, This site indicates that there is some controversery about this in OK. See:
Common Law Marriage in Oklahoma

Apparently, the courts have upheld case law that basically states if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck it's a duck. So a couple that says they are married and acts like they are married may be considered married. One of the requirements is that the:
The couple publicly considers themselves to be husband and wife.
I would say that filing a tax return as married would be a public statement that they consider themselves married.

Common law marriages are becoming very much the exception as states are closing those loopholes. So we may be forgiven about forgetting about that possibility.

Now the question becomes how does one end a common law marriage. For that I'm going to move this back to Family Law.

I found this on a site about Colorado, but it may apply to OK as well:
Myth 6: So what if I am considered common law married, I can simply “annul” the marriage, right?

Wrong. If you are held to be common law married, you will have to go through a full-blown dissolution of marriage proceeding.

So it would appear that if you declare yourself married under common-law, then you have to formalize the dissolution of that marriage.

[tammywhite]

Thanks so much, I forwarded all of these posts to my friend and advised her to join the site too. This is really cool, had no idea that anything like this was out there.
The common law site was helpful and I really appreciate your response. I googled the question: annullment VS Divorce in Oklahoma and this was one of the first sites to look at, so glad I signed up. Now I know where to go when I have a question about anything.
Thanks Again
Tammy

[ScottGem]

Glad to help, You might also want to check out some of the FAQS on using this site like how to use the comments feature.

Sites like this have been around for a long time, but we've risen to the top because of the commitment and knowledge of our volunteers.