Questions about tax debt, answered straight.

Keep the envelope and the letter, and find the CP or LT code printed near the corner — that code identifies exactly which notice it is. Note the date on the letter, because response windows run from that date, not the day you opened it. Do not pay or sign anything until you understand what the notice asserts. If a deadline is close, it changes the order of everything else.

There is no universal threshold, and a firm that quotes one is describing its own sales floor. Representation tends to earn its cost when several years are involved, when returns are missing, when penalties and interest have materially changed the number, when collection has started, or when a business or payroll issue creates personal exposure. A single recent balance you can pay within a few months usually does not need a representative.

That is the normal starting position and it is not a problem. Your IRS account transcripts show assessed balances by year and tax type, penalties and interest, payments applied, and collection status. You can request them yourself at no cost through an IRS online account, or authorize a representative to pull them. Nearly every case starts here, because the number people arrive with and the number on the account rarely match.

A conversation about what has happened so far — the notices you have received, roughly what is owed, which years may be unfiled, and whether a levy or garnishment is active. Nothing requires your records to be in order, and you will not be asked for payment information. You should come away knowing what the immediate concern is and what it would take to evaluate it properly.

Both. Individual balances, self-employed taxpayers, payroll and employment tax, sales tax, and cases where a business problem has already reached the owner personally through a Trust Fund Recovery Penalty assessment. Business and personal exposure usually have to be addressed together, because resolving one and leaving the other tends to create a second problem later.

We obtain and analyse your account records, prepare any required returns and disclosures, represent you with the IRS or a state agency under a signed authorization, and help you stay compliant once a resolution is in place. We are a tax-resolution company, not a law firm, and we do not provide legal advice or appear in court.

You are told which professional is responsible for your matter and under what credential, and you can verify that licence directly with the issuing body. Representation before the IRS is provided by our tax professionals under a signed engagement letter and a Form 2848 authorization.

Through a secure portal, not as email attachments. Please do not send Social Security numbers, bank account numbers or document copies through the website form — that form exists only to start a conversation. Sensitive material is collected later, through the secure channel, and we ask only for what a case genuinely requires.

No. Fees paid to a representative are for professional work and are separate from anything owed to the taxing authority. Any payment toward your tax debt goes to the IRS or state agency directly, under whatever arrangement is approved. Be cautious of any firm that blurs this line or asks to collect your tax payments on your behalf.

Yes, and it happens. If your situation is straightforward enough to handle yourself, or if the likely benefit does not justify the fee, you will hear that. It is bad for one month's revenue and good for everything after it — including the referrals that follow from people who were told the truth.

Bring what you have: the engagement agreement, anything that was filed, and any correspondence. The first step is establishing what actually happened on the account rather than what you were told happened. Sometimes the strategy was wrong for the facts, sometimes required returns were never filed, sometimes a deadline lapsed. Some outcomes can be revisited and some cannot, and you will get a straight answer about which yours is.

Yes. Authority to practise before the IRS is federal, so eligible federal matters are handled remotely for clients in all fifty states. State tax representation is a separate question governed by each state's rules and by individual licensing, and we will tell you who is responsible for your matter before you engage us.

The sequence continues without you. Reminder notices escalate to a final notice of intent to levy, and once that window closes the IRS can levy wages or bank accounts without going to court. Penalties and interest accrue throughout, and appeal rights attached to specific notices expire on their dates. Ignoring a notice pauses nothing — it only removes you from the conversation about what happens next.

Generally the IRS must issue notice before levying, including a final notice of intent to levy and notice of your right to a hearing. In practice people experience it as no warning because notices went to an old address, were set aside unopened, or were not recognised for what they were. Some situations follow different rules, such as a jeopardy assessment or the levy of a state tax refund. State agencies have their own procedures.

Sometimes, and timing decides it. Common grounds include documented economic hardship, establishing an approved arrangement, showing the levy was issued without required procedure, or showing the funds are exempt. A bank levy is the most urgent, because the bank holds the funds for a limited period before remitting them. Release is never automatic and never guaranteed.

No. A phone call or a form submission has no legal effect on your account. Collection is affected by specific actions taken with the taxing authority — filing an authorization, requesting a hold while a resolution is evaluated, submitting a request that suspends collection while pending, or obtaining a release. We would rather you understand that than assume you are protected when you are not.

First contact about a tax debt normally comes by mail. The IRS does not open contact by text message or social media, and it will not demand payment by gift card, wire transfer or cryptocurrency, or threaten to send police to your door. Any caller doing that is running a scam. A revenue officer may visit in person in some circumstances, and you can ask for credentials.

Generally ten years from the date the tax was assessed, known as the collection statute expiration date. Certain events suspend or extend that clock, including a pending offer, a bankruptcy, a Collection Due Process request, or time spent outside the country. Because the date runs per assessment rather than per tax year, two balances from the same return can expire at different times.

Yes, in both directions. Federal refunds can be offset against certain state tax debts through established offset programs, and the IRS can levy a state tax refund — that is specifically what a CP504 notice warns about. Refund offsets are one of the most common ways people discover a balance they had forgotten or never knew about.

Yes, through an Offer in Compromise — but not on request and not by negotiation. The IRS applies a formula based on your realizable asset equity plus future income measured against allowable living expenses. If that figure is below the balance, a settlement is possible. If it is above, no amount of advocacy changes the arithmetic. A firm promising pennies on the dollar before running it is selling a submission, not a result.

By running the calculation the IRS will run: what it could reasonably expect to collect before the collection period expires. That means realizable equity in assets plus a projection of future income against allowable expenses. Filing compliance is required, and certain situations disqualify an offer outright, such as an open bankruptcy. If the numbers do not support one, we say so rather than charging for a submission unlikely to be accepted.

You find that out before money is spent pursuing it, which is the point of verifying the record first. Most people who do not qualify for an Offer in Compromise have a realistic alternative — often a partial-pay installment agreement or Currently Not Collectible status, both of which can produce a better practical outcome than a rejected offer.

It is not a single application, despite how often it is advertised as one. Fresh Start is the name for a set of collection changes that widened access to streamlined installment agreements, relaxed parts of the Offer in Compromise calculation, and raised the balance threshold at which a lien is normally filed. There is no Fresh Start form. Ask any firm using the phrase which specific program they intend to file.

Sometimes. Two routes come up most: first-time abatement, an administrative option for taxpayers with an otherwise clean recent compliance history, and reasonable cause, which requires documented facts showing why the failure occurred despite ordinary business care. Inability to pay alone is generally not reasonable cause for a failure-to-pay penalty. Interest is treated differently and is rarely abated except where it results from IRS error or delay.

A determination that paying anything would leave you unable to meet basic living expenses. While it holds, the IRS suspends active collection — no wage levy, no bank levy. The debt does not disappear, interest generally continues, a lien may still be filed, and the IRS can review your finances and lift the status later. Because the collection clock keeps running, some balances expire inside it.

It varies widely by route. A levy release can move in days or weeks. An installment agreement is often relatively quick. An Offer in Compromise is typically measured in months and can run beyond a year depending on IRS processing, information requests and any appeal. Filing several years of back returns adds time at the front. You get an estimated range for your specific path once the transcripts are reviewed.

It is one of the most common situations we see, and it is fixable. Missing returns usually have to be addressed first, because most resolution programs require filing compliance. You may not need every year — IRS administrative policy addresses how many prior years are typically required to be considered compliant, and it depends on the facts. Establishing which years are genuinely required is often the first piece of good news in a case.

That is a substitute for return, and the assessed balance is often significantly overstated. A substitute return generally excludes deductions, credits and filing statuses you were entitled to claim, because the IRS prepares it from third-party documents alone. Filing an accurate original return for that year frequently reduces the assessment, sometimes substantially.

Usually yes. Wage and income transcripts show what employers, banks and other payers reported to the IRS about you for a given year, which is often enough to reconstruct a return. Bank statements fill most of the remaining gaps. Very few cases are genuinely stuck on missing records.

Not all at once. To start, nothing beyond what you already know. After that: any notices you have received, a signed engagement letter and Form 2848, and — only for routes that require financial disclosure — income and expense documentation. Anything needed is requested at the stage it becomes relevant, not upfront as a hurdle.

Not always. Substitute returns overstate balances routinely. Underreporter notices such as CP2000 are proposals built from third-party documents, and those documents are sometimes wrong, duplicated or misattributed. Checking an assessment before paying it is worth the time it takes, and occasionally it is worth a great deal.

Through an IRS online account or by mail, at no cost, and you do not need anyone's help to do it. Account transcripts show assessments, payments, penalties and collection activity by year. Wage and income transcripts show what third parties reported about you. A representative with a Form 2848 on file can also obtain them for you.

Payroll tax debt includes money withheld from employee wages, which the law treats as held in trust. When it is not remitted, the IRS can assess the Trust Fund Recovery Penalty personally against individuals it determines were responsible for collecting or paying the tax and who acted willfully. That determination can reach owners, officers, bookkeepers and others depending on actual authority.

Not from a trust fund assessment. Entity structure protects against many kinds of business liability, but the Trust Fund Recovery Penalty is assessed against people, not companies, precisely because the money was withheld from employees. This is the category where waiting causes the most damage, because the exposure can outlive the business itself.

Sales tax is administered at state level, and rules on nexus, taxability, exemption certificates and personal liability vary widely. Collected-but-unremitted sales tax is often treated as trust money in the same way payroll withholding is, which can create personal exposure for owners. The first step is establishing which states have a claim and for which periods.

They usually have to be. Owner draws, unfiled entity returns, payroll exposure and personal guarantees pull the individual into the business matter. Resolving one side alone tends to leave a problem behind that resurfaces later, so we look at the entity and the person as a single picture.

A joint return generally makes both spouses liable for the whole balance, and a divorce decree assigning the debt to one spouse does not bind the IRS. What can change your liability is Innocent Spouse Relief, which comes in three forms — traditional relief, separation of liability, and equitable relief — each with its own requirements and time limits.

It can remove your liability for tax arising from a spouse's or former spouse's items on a joint return. The analysis turns on what you knew, whether you benefited, and when the return was filed. These cases rest on facts that are personal and often hard to document, and the other spouse is notified and has a right to participate. Relief may be partial rather than total.

It can be offset against a debt that is solely your spouse's, but injured spouse relief exists for exactly that situation and can return your share of a joint refund. Injured spouse and innocent spouse are different things that get confused constantly: one is about your share of a refund, the other is about liability for the tax itself.

Fees depend on scope: how many years are involved, whether returns need preparing, whether the matter is federal, state or both, and which resolution is pursued. Scope and fee are set out in writing before any work begins, along with what is not included. Be wary of a quote given before anyone has seen what your account actually shows.

Yes, and for straightforward matters many people should. A single year with a manageable balance and a simple payment plan rarely needs a representative, and the IRS publishes its programs and forms at no cost. Representation earns its fee when the financial analysis is complex, when several years or entities are involved, when collection is active, or when what you say can change the outcome.

You have every right to, and for a simple question about a balance or a payment plan it is often the fastest route. Have the notice in front of you and expect to wait. Be aware that what you say about your finances can be recorded on the account and used later, which is the main reason people choose representation once a financial disclosure is involved.

Watch for a specific reduction promised before anyone has seen your transcripts, pressure to decide on the first call, large fees collected upfront with vague scope, the phrase "Fresh Start program" used as though it were an application, and reluctance to name the credential of the person who will represent you. Any one of those is a reason to slow down.

Three things. Whether the person representing you is an enrolled agent, CPA or attorney, and whether that credential verifies with the issuing body. Whether the scope and fee are in writing, including what is excluded. And whether they will tell you, in plain terms, which specific program they intend to pursue and why your numbers support it. A firm that cannot answer the third question has not done the first step.