My dad called me today. He is an accountant and called to tell me he had filed my taxes and that I would have had a fortune if it were 1906 (don't know why he picked that year). Gotta love dad. Anyway, Broadsheet breaks down a particular tax code that is good to know.

...if you're married and you have any reason to suspect that your spouse may be a deadbeat, don't file a joint tax return. That's because if he (and usually it's a he; the dire scenario I outline here mostly affects women) cheats on his taxes and then leaves you (because that's just the sort of scumbag he is, and you should have listened to your mother all along), the IRS will make you pay back taxes and penalties on his income. This is what's known as the "joint liability" provision of the tax code. As the IRS explains it on its Web site, "One spouse may be held responsible for all the tax due even if the other spouse earned all the income or claimed improper deductions or credits."

Read more at Broadsheet...