Ok a little back story. Ten years ago I met my wife and 8 years ago we were married. Shortly before our wedding she quit her job and started watching her nephew for her brother so she could be a homemaker and stay at home mom when we start having kids. We now have three.

Anyways, even though my wife has never had an income since we were married I still always filed joint for any tax benefits. This worked great for our first five years of marriage until 2012 tax season. I was following my return, as I always have, on Where's My Refund and it showed it was to be deposited within the week. When it wasn't deposits I checked the site again and it showed my total was $0 because of an offset and gave me a number to call. I called and entered my info and it said I had no debt. Confused I entered my wife's info and it came back my refund had been taken for a past student loan. I was devastated! I guess my wife had gone to school for one year back in the mid 90's and had a student load out which she paid on until she quit her job.

I did some research and read about injured spouse and filled out the paper work and after a couple months did receive my full refund. Then for the next two years I filed the 8397 along with my tax return forms and after a couple months have received my full refund.

Fast forward to this year and my wife wanted to do something and started selling ThirtyOne bags. She has been making some sales so she is going to have to file this year. I have a few questions:

1, Is there a minimum she has to make to file or does she have to file even if she only made $1?

2. Is we file joint and they take some of the return because she has an income now does that say half the refund is mine and half hers and I file the 8397 and only get half of the total return?

3. If we file seperate can they touch my refund at all?

4. If we file separate how does that effect child tax credits. We have three children, do I just claim them and get my full amount since I don't owe the government a loan and they take hers?

I want her to pay her loan but supporting a family of five on one income is really hard and I just can't pay off her past debt and she will make less than a $1000 with this ThirtyOne thing so she will have to let them take her tax refunds (if she is even supposed to get one).

How can I do this so I still get the refund I have been getting every year?