Terrence Howard -- Between IRS and My Wife ... I Choose Taxes

Terrence Howard has a strange bedfellow ... the IRS, who he'd rather be in bed with than his ex-wife.

Howard is using his massive tax debt to torpedo his wife's bid to squeeze money out of him.

He owes the feds $1.2 million ... and the State of California $156K. So the nerve, he says in new court docs, of ex-wife Michelle Ghent to demand nearly a half a million bucks in back spousal support and legal costs.

Howard says in the docs he paid her $2,000 this month ... which is all he can afford.