Signing Your Tax Return

Probably all of you know that you are required to sign your tax return before filing. You may also know that your tax return is technically not considered a valid return unless it is signed. If you are filing a joint tax return, both spouses must sign. Even if you e-file your return, you are still “signing” your return, usually by authorizing your tax preparer to submit your return on your behalf by you signing Form 8879, which is the e-file signature authorization form. Thus, in that sense nothing has changed – you are still signing your return, but you are signing on a form that is technically not part of your return, it is detached (actually it was never attached) and is kept on file (is required to be kept on file) by your tax preparer. 

However, there are other situations, actually a surprising number, where the person for whom the return is being filed does not sign the return. In some cases it’s simply because that person is not able to. To give you a better sense of the magnitude, or the wide range, of such situations, consider the following:

• If your spouse is incompetent (please – no snide comments), and you are the guardian of your spouse, you can sign the return on his/her behalf.

• If your spouse is in the armed services, you can sign on his/her behalf. You attach a statement that explains your spouse is in the service – particularly if in a combat zone.

• If your spouse can’t sign because of injury or disease, you can sign that person’s name to the return, and then follow that signature by including your name and that you are the spouse. You must also attach a statement indicating the reason your spouse can’t sign, and that your spouse has agreed you can sign on his/her behalf.

• If the return is for a child, and if that child can’t sign his/her name, then a parent, guardian or someone legally responsible for that child, can sign the child’s name. Immediately following that signature, you would add that it is being signed by a parent or guardian. Note that if the child can sign his/her name, then that child is supposed to sign his/her own name. Query – are they still teaching children how to write/sign?

• Of course, you have the authority to sign for someone else if you happen to be a court appointed guardian or other fiduciary for someone who is say physically or mentally incapable of signing his/her name.

• In general, you can sign on behalf of someone else if you have a Power of Attorney (POA) giving you that authority. That generally would be via Form 2848 so that it meets the IRS’s standards. Note that POA needs to be attached to the tax return.

Interestingly, a signature can be perfectly valid even for someone who can’t hold a pen correctly due to a disability or if that person is illiterate. The quintessential “X” mark is still legal in most jurisdictions as a valid signature. It would be helpful, perhaps in some cases required, that such signature be witnessed. However, there is no requirement your signature look a certain way, or even be legible. Some would suggest that an illegible signature is superior (in terms of say fraud prevention) than a fully legible one, in that it is arguably more difficult to replicate something that is illegible. I don’t necessarily buy into that belief.  

If you have any questions contact Kal Barson at kal@barsongroup.com.