Legal Question in Family Law in Kansas

For many people, an anullment seems like the perfect way to get away from a marriage. However, your situation has a couple of drawbacks:

First, the grounds for an anullment are based on a misrepresentation made by one party which induced the other party into marriage. It would seem strange that such a misrepresentation would only come to light after three years of marriage. Normally, as an office rule, we only file anullments within one year of the date of marriage. Even then, we sometimes draft the court paperwork to include an alternative request for a divorce, in case the judge decides an anullment is not appropriate.

The second drawback is more pragmatic. According to an IRS ruling, if an annulment is retroactive, the couple was never married. As a result, they had no right to file joint income tax returns while they were together. (Revenue Ruling 76-255). If the court were to award an anullment, amended tax returns for each year of the "marriage" would be required by the IRS. That would likely produce a host of ancillary issues, such as who would be entitled to claim mortgage interest or real estate taxes as a tax deduction.