Child tax credit

Hello! It may not be necessary and in fact may be detrimental to file separately from your spouse. If there is a back tax debt or other obligation that is solely the responsibility of one spouse, you can elect to file an injured spouse allocation in order to have the non-liable spouse's portion of the refund deposited to your bank account.  The liable spouse's portion of the refund will still be intercepted to satisfy the outstanding obligation, but you will be able to claim the benefits of being married filing jointly which is usually preferable to married filing separately.