Tax Debt Help: Steps to Resolve IRS Problems

What Happens When You Owe the IRS and How Tax Debt Help Works

Owing money to the IRS is a special kind of stress because unlike a credit card company or a personal loan bad credit lender the IRS has powers that no other creditor has including the ability to garnish your wages seize your bank accounts and put liens on your property and that is why getting tax debt help sooner rather than later is so important before things spiral into a full blown nightmare. The first thing that happens when you owe the IRS and do not pay is they start sending you notices in the mail and the worst thing you can do is ignore those notices because the IRS does not just go away and the penalties and interest keep piling up making your tax debt help situation worse every single month you avoid dealing with it. Tax debt help starts with figuring out exactly how much you owe and making sure the IRS’s numbers are correct because sometimes the IRS files a substitute return for you if you did not file and that return does not include all the deductions and credits you are entitled to which means they say you owe way more than you actually do. Once you know the real amount getting tax debt help means exploring your resolution options with the IRS and the most common one is an installment agreement where you pay off your tax debt in monthly payments over time and the IRS is generally willing to work with you on this as long as you are current on your current year tax obligations and you file all required returns. If you cannot afford to pay anything at all tax debt help might involve requesting currently not collectible status where the IRS temporarily pauses collection activity because they determine you do not have the ability to pay your basic living expenses and anything toward your tax debt. For people with a really large tax debt an offer in compromise is a tax debt help option where you settle your tax debt for less than the full amount owed but this is not easy to qualify for and the IRS looks at your income assets and expenses to determine what they could reasonably collect from you.

The IRS Resolution Options That Tax Relief Help Professionals Use

Tax relief help professionals like enrolled agents CPAs and IRS tax attorneys have a whole toolkit of strategies to resolve IRS problems and knowing which option applies to your specific situation is where their expertise really pays off compared to trying to figure this stuff out on your own. An IRS tax attorney can help you with an offer in compromise by preparing a convincing financial analysis that shows the IRS exactly why they should accept less than the full amount and having a tax relief help professional handle this increases your odds of approval significantly compared to submitting an offer on your own. For people with older tax debts tax relief help might involve analyzing the collection statute expiration date because the IRS generally has ten years from the date the tax was assessed to collect it and if that deadline is approaching a tax relief help professional can use that as leverage in negotiations. Penalty abatement is another tax relief help strategy where you request that the IRS remove or reduce the penalties they have assessed and this works best if you have a reasonable cause like a serious illness or a natural disaster that prevented you from paying on time or if you have a clean compliance history and can request first time penalty abatement. If the IRS has already filed a tax lien against you tax relief help can include negotiating a lien withdrawal or subordination which can be important if you are trying to get a business loan or SBA loan assistance and the lien is blocking your ability to access financing. The best tax relief help professionals will also make sure you are set up for compliance going forward because the IRS will not agree to any resolution if you have unfiled returns or if you are not paying your current year taxes.