<prompt> Human: My wife owes about 15K in student loans that she never started paying. The same thing happened to me about 8 years ago and eventually the IRS started keeping my refund to pay off the debt. Finally, last year, I received the first refund check weve seen in about 6 years or more. At the time, we were filing marriedjointly. Now that she is in the same boat, Im sure theyre about to start doing the same thing again to us to try to re-coop her debt. My question is this.. if we file married separate, will they just keep her refund and not mine? Also, would it be better if she claim one of our two children as a dependent or have them both filed under me? I know if we file together, theyll keep the whole refund about 3K but i was hoping to circumvent the process.. What do you think?  <response>: Why are you not willing to pay the loan back directly? You must realize you an incurring additional costs by having the loan collected through garnished through the IRS. 