STUDIES OF JOINT RETURN-RELATED ISSUES.

Sec. 401. STUDIES OF JOINT RETURN-RELATED ISSUES. The Secretary of the Treasury or his delegate and the Comptroller General of the United States shall each conduct separate studies of— (1) the effects of changing the liability for tax on a joint return from being joint and several to being proportionate to the tax attributable to each spouse, (2) the effects of providing that, if a divorce decree allocates liability for tax on a joint return filed before the divorce, the Secretary may collect such liability only in accordance with the decree, (3) whether those provisions of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 intended to provide relief to innocent spouses provide meaningful relief in all cases where such relief is appropriate, and (4) the effect of providing that community income (as defined in section 66(d) of such Code) which, in accordance with the rules contained in section 879(a) of such Code, would be treated as the income of one spouse is exempt from a levy for failure to pay any tax imposed by subtitle A by the other spouse for a taxable year ending before their marriage. the reports of such studies shall be submitted to the Committee on Ways and Means of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Finance of the Senate within 6 months after the date of the enactment of this Act.