IRS representation means your legal right to have another person speak on your behalf to the IRS during an administrative encounter in response to a notice. A representative does more than speak for you. They help you navigate the many complex technical rules that come up during an audit or other tax-related controversy.

While the IRS is not a court, it can be similar. There are many specific procedures, deadlines, and requirements that an individual is likely unfamiliar with. This can become a problem. Missing a deadline or not following a required procedure can lead to an inadvertent loss of rights and options for resolving an issue.

Our Clients Benefit from Formal IRS Representation

Clients receive expert guidance in preparing, delivering, and clarifying IRS information statements. Financial information statements are at the heart of IRS collection activities. They can make or break receiving the payment plan you want. You can have an offer or Innocent Spouse Claim accepted or rejected. They can qualify you for other administrative statutes and programs.

The preparation of IRS information statements can seem simple, but deceptively nuanced. Many professionals said that the preparation of such statements is as much an art as a science. Various obscure exclusion amounts, thresholds, and asset classifications determine how the IRS responds to your situation.

Some are generated through court cases or other proceedings. Some are not discussed or explained in the guides the IRS publishes for taxpayer consumption. Ensuring you meet all the requirements for such exclusions takes prior planning and guidance. With enough time and planning, clients can benefit from structuring their financial lives to qualify for programs they otherwise could not.

The most important benefit of securing professional IRS representation clients receive is the ability to shield themselves from the skilled information-gathering tactics IRS employees often use. The information taxpayers must divulge is often straightforward. Nothing stops an IRS employee from asking further questions. Often, they pry deeper into their financials than required.

More than one taxpayer working under the assumption that their cooperation will be rewarded realized that instead of helping themselves, they made their situation worse. A skilled representative knows exactly what the IRS needs and does not persist in asking for it. Know how to answer questions in ways that will not trigger further unnecessary, inconvenient, and time-consuming requests.

Most people agree it’s unwise to walk into a police interrogation or courtroom alone. We believe you should never talk to the IRS alone either. Taxing authorities use many of the same tactics as interrogators to scare people into complying with unnecessary, sometimes unlawful demands.

Payment Agreements

There are a variety of payment plans available through the IRS. Each plan comes with different thresholds, rules, payment methods, tradeoffs, and information disclosure requirements. Generally, the IRS requires taxpayers to pay their debt in full in a set number of years, depending on the amount.

If a taxpayer submits appropriate financial information, they can have those required payments lowered. This means our clients pay less than the total amount due, especially in cases of older tax debt. If given our client’s circumstances, we can argue for mitigating circumstances for lack of payment or significant doubt they can reasonably pay.

In addition to the document preparation and delivery that goes into applying for any of the programs, an important aspect of helping a client looking for a nonstandard payment plan is telling their story. This must be done in a way the IRS will be sympathetic to. The recounting of that story begins with the first phone call after we engage a client. It extends through the last call with a Revenue Officer.

Partial Charge Offs

The IRS, by law, must consider mitigating circumstances for certain types of events when interacting with taxpayers. Communicating those circumstances often makes for an effective way to receive nonstandard beneficial treatment. IRS employees naturally look for certain phrases, references to law, and types of issues in the story told when deciding.

Taxpayers don’t know how to appropriately explain their situation in a way that makes it easy for an examiner to see how their story connects to the box they need to check to provide relief. This means most people tell the wrong parts of their story. They don’t realize that it might qualify them for relief. This can significantly impact the amount a taxpayer ends up paying. In 2017, an appropriately formatted appeal saved one client $31,000 of penalties.

Installment Agreements

The most common type of payment plan for taxpayers that owe small amounts or without issues paying the required amount is a standard installment agreement. Standard installment agreements are easy to apply for and receive from the IRS. Assuming the taxpayer did not previously default on one.

Installment agreements become more difficult to secure when one wants to avoid a lien or can’t pay the standard IRS-required minimum payments. Depending on the taxpayer’s circumstances and balance due, the IRS may need to file a lien.

Liens

Liens are a common topic of discussion for taxpayers dealing with a tax controversy. They attach to homes, making transactions like refinancing, home equity lines of credit, and selling more difficult. You can avoid liens in several ways. Engaging in more favorable payment terms with the IRS or effectively arguing that it is in the government’s best interest not to file a tax lien, can help.

Unfortunately, once filed, a lien is hard to remove. Many taxpayers file for installment agreements. Often without realizing that had they signed up for different payments term or paid some money upfront, they could have avoided the embarrassment of a public lien and harassing phone calls from lien removal companies.

Professional Credentials

Another less discussed consideration for many taxpayers considering payment terms includes protecting their professional credentials, lines of credit needed to run their business, and passports. Many professional bodies and creditors respond poorly to the placement of a lien on a client.

Credentialing bodies even revoke professional credentials in rarer cases. States even refuse to renew licenses. Also, if a client travels for work, a passport’s seizure can be a costly, embarrassing occurrence.

Partial Pay Agreements

Another form of an installment agreement, partial pay installment agreements are rarer. However, they are still available to some taxpayers. These installment agreements are called “partial pay.” Unlike normal installment agreements, which pay the full amount due over time, partial pay agreements do not.

These types of installment agreements are more common for old tax debts. The IRS likely agrees to a partial pay installment agreement. Especially when the collection statute of limitations nears its expiration. The taxpayer’s economic circumstances need to change dramatically.

Offers in Compromise

The Offer in Compromise program is one of the more famous collection alternatives available at the IRS. Featured on sketchy late-night TV ads, they promise to settle your debt for pennies on the dollar or negotiate with the IRS. While some people see these results, they have more to do with their financial condition.

This depends on their representative’s ability to hold an employee accountable to the IRS’s rules rather than shrewd negotiation skills. It’s hard to advertise the truth, though. So, many choose not to. Filing an Offer in Compromise also increases the statute of limitations on the IRS’s ability to collect the tax. While offers are an excellent tool in many cases, if candidates are not carefully screened, they can do more harm than good.

In addition to the increase in the amount of time the IRS can collect the tax if the offer fails, an accepted offer carries a five-year compliance requirement. After that, the IRS retroactively cancels an offer. Some taxpayers sold a quick fix often receive an unpleasant surprise when they find out what they really signed up for.

Once they understand the full ramifications of an offer more seriously, they often consider other options. An OIC is a good tool in the right circumstances. We highly advise consulting a neutral professional you know and trust before attempting to file one. Contact us for assistance in this situation.

Doubt as to Collectability

A Doubt as to Collectability Offer in Compromise is the more well-known of the two types of Offers in Compromise. Also, it’s the more heavily advertised and misrepresented of the two. If you hear companies advertising a one-time tax forgiveness program to settle your tax debt for pennies on the dollar, this is most likely the program they push.

While the program does exist, the advertisements are often quite misleading. The program is not as much a negotiation as advertisers lead people to believe. Bankruptcy laws were partially modeled on the IRS’s offer in compromise program.

The process is much more akin to proving that you can’t pay than a “settlement.” There are some strict requirements for this program. Your acceptance into it often has more to do with your financial situation than the strength of a “negotiator.” If you do not meet the requirements, your offer will be denied instantly.

Why We File

This is one reason why we do file offers in compromise. We often counsel people against them and suggest other strategies. In addition to the cost of preparing an Offer in Compromise and following up with the IRS, a failed OIC extends the amount of time the IRS can legally attempt collection of tax debt.

Sometimes a failed offer can give the IRS as much as an extra two years to collect on the amounts due. Filing multiple Offers in Compromise can be worse than doing nothing in some cases. This means that if an Offer in Compromise filed clearly does not qualify, the only person benefiting from it is the preparer.

We feel strongly that tax advisers should act in the best interests of their clients. This belief leads us to vet any potential offer in compromise candidates heavily. We make sure that a potential offer does not worsen their situation.

Doubt as to Liability

A much less well-known version of the two types of Offers in Compromise. The more common one deals with “Doubt as to Collectability.” This provides taxpayers the ability to argue that it is in the best interest of the government or effective tax administration for the IRS to accept less than the full balance due.

Doubt as to Liability allows the taxpayer to argue that the balance the IRS assessed against the taxpayer is unlikely to be correct. Doubt as to Liability Offers are used less often. Generally used in more specialized situations where amending a return isn’t advisable or won’t yield the same result. However, they can be useful for certain problems. Especially if the Internal Revenue Service makes active collections efforts.

Innocent & Injured Spouse

Often one of the more misunderstood IRS programs, it is often confused with Injured Spouse Relief. They are two very distinct programs with different purposes. Confusing the two can cause a person to lose substantial rights. Recently, a taxpayer went all the way to the tax court to resolve a mix-up between the two.

Innocent Spouse

Innocent Spouse Relief is a type of relief designed for taxpayers with a tax liability originating from a joint return. They must meet certain financial and personal criteria. On the grounds of fairness and equity, they must wish to be relieved of tax owed because the debt flows from a spouse or former spouses’ actions.

Innocent spouse relief often applies in situations where a spouse or former spouse committed tax fraud, lied about their tax situation, or withheld information about taxes. Innocent spouse claims are particularly effective in situations where financial control or abuse are present. These claims are often particularly delicate.

They are helped by an increased degree of sensitivity, confidentiality, compassion, and discretion. There are a few reasons for this. These claims often involve two parties with a long, tumultuous history. For all these reasons, we encourage people to find someone with experience in these kinds of claims who understand such a claim’s emotional and technical aspects.

The IRS routinely inappropriately denies innocent spouse claims. They only seriously consider them on appeal. The innocent spouse forms have been described as designed to elicit information that helps deny a claim rather than guiding a taxpayer appropriately expressing their situation. Also, the person may have survived significant emotional or physical abuse.

Injured Spouse Relief

Injured spouse relief is a program that allows the spouse of a taxpayer currently filing a joint return to request that the IRS not apply their federal withholding against a debt owed solely by the other spouse. This type of relief is often useful when spouses have taxes or other debts that predate a marriage.

An Injured Spouse claim is usually straightforward. Unless a taxpayer lives in a community property state. However, Maine is not a community property state. Unless a person recently moved or spends substantial time in another state, this usually isn’t an issue for our clients.

Currently Not Collectible Status

The IRS has “Hardship” and “Currently Not Collectible” programs. These programs temporarily halt collections efforts for past due amounts for taxpayers who can prove hardship according to state and national guidelines. Generally, once approved, program participants must undergo annual or biannual review.

If the taxpayer files a return with income above a certain threshold, they may begin receiving letters. They must then either reapply or seek another solution. Unfortunately, even if they clearly meet the requirements for non-collectible status, they must formally go through the process.

Hardship Programs

The IRS has consistently been in trouble for abusing its discretion around middle and low-income taxpayers who qualify for this program. The Taxpayer Advocate, the government-funded watchdog for the IRS, included this issue multiple times in its annual report. Additionally, the courts ruled for over 20 years that the IRS’s administrative posture towards certain taxpayers’ abuses legislatively provided discretion.

In particular, the Vinatieri case cemented the legal framework for challenging abuse by the IRS and its employee’s interpretation of IRC § 6343(a)(1)(D). It clearly states that the secretary should release a levy if it causes undue financial hardship. Unfortunately, the average IRS employee does not need to read case law related to these issues. They aren’t aware that courts rule this way with little internal movement in the IRS to fix this oversight.

Garnishment, Levy, & Lien Removal

Levy Releases

A levy is a hold that the IRS puts on a taxpayer’s bank or another financial account. Giving them notice that they intend to seize the contents to satisfy what they understand to the amount due. A notice of intent to levy is one of the scariest letters a taxpayer can receive in the mail.

We helped more than one person go from tears to smiles. We explain that a levy can be released and fought effectively. In fact, there are numerous ways to release a levy.

They include:

Establishing a payment plan
Arguing economic hardship
Arguing that it is in the government’s best interest not to seize the proceeds
The income is protected by a special law, such as certain forms of government benefits
Arguing that the money is needed to run your business
Paying your current tax liabilities
There are exceptional circumstances that should be taken into account
The IRS improperly levies the account

Fighting levies is a practice area we are particularly passionate about. When Jerrod was in general practice, one of his earliest experiences with a levy helped stop one incorrectly placed on his family member’s business account. That experience is partially why Jerrod went on to found a firm dedicated solely to representation work.

He saw the abusive way levies are sometimes used firsthand. After he had the levy lifted, three weeks quicker than the bank said it could be done, his family members could make payroll. He realized not only that he might have the skill for this kind of work but that he was also passionate about it.

Wage Garnishments

Another important topic when dealing with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS). They are technically levies under the Internal Revenue Code. Instead of levying an account once, the levy attaches to a stream of income until it satisfies the debt. Often attached to employment income, they can technically attach to most income types.

Unless statutorily excluded from levy by law. Wage garnishments at the Federal level typically follow the same guidelines as installment agreements for determining if they cause undue hardship on a taxpayer. In many cases, you can easily challenge and remove them with appropriate professional help.

You can challenge a garnishment from the Internal Revenue Service by:

Filling the appropriate Information Statement with the IRS
Requesting a Collection Due Process
Equivalent Hearing
Collections Appeal Program request as applicable

Wage Levies

Particularly aggressive and designed to enforce compliance. In many cases, unless you argue effectively against them by providing the correct documentation to the Internal Revenue Service. Otherwise, they can take the vast majority of a weekly paycheck.

Garnishments generally seize everything above a certain income amount rather than a set amount. No matter how much a paycheck increases, the IRS takes that much more. This can cause tough problems for those who work on commission.

Lien Removal

To deal with a lien, avoid filing a Notice of Federal Tax Lien by setting up a payment or alternate payment plan before the notice’s filing. Liens are much harder to remove than stopping garnishments or levies. If you know you owe, consult with a professional first. See if tax planning can prevent the Notice of Federal Tax Lien.

In most cases, a lien doesn’t immediately take anything of value or cause substantial enough harm to use many of the arguments made in other collections situations. A lien establishes the government’s priority as a creditor. The order in which different creditors file liens establishes their place in line for the property sale proceeds.

Subordination

However, in some cases, a lien can do damage to a taxpayer. It’s in the Government’s best interest to subordinate that lien to another creditor’s claim, withdraw it, or release it. In subordination, taxpayers often find they see the best results when it clearly links to a quantifiable payment made to the government.

For example, if they need subordination to acquire a home loan to improve the property, they can sell it. In that case, the IRS may agree to subordinate the lien. However, if a homeowner wants to pay off some or all of the debt by cashing out their equity, the IRS more likely subordinates their claim.

Collection Due Process, Equivalent Hearings, & Collection Appeals Program

Collection Due Process hearings, not to be confused with the Collection Appeals Program, are among the most significant tools in a taxpayer’s arsenal. CDP hearings give taxpayer representatives the right to appeal Internal Revenue Service lien and levy actions early in the collection process. This includes continuous levies such as wage garnishments.

A request for a Collections Due Process hearing halts the action for which the hearing was requested. The taxpayer can challenge both the validity of the underlying assessment and propose alternative collection and payment methods. Taxpayers do not always receive this right after the initial levy or lien documents go into motion. Professionals specializing in this practice area fought hard for this right.

Equivalent Hearings

The one downside to Collection Due Process rights is that they are easily lost. A taxpayer must respond within 30 days to the initial Notice of Intent to Levy or Notice of Lien. If they do not meet this timeline, a taxpayer may request an equivalent hearing, similar to a Collection Due Process hearing. The major downside to an equivalent hearing is the loss of the ability to appeal the hearing’s decision in the United States Tax Court.

Collection Appeals Program (CAP)

The Collection Appeals Program, not to be confused with the Collection Due Process Hearing, has a different function while dealing with related issues. The Collection Appeals Program (CAP) was birthed simultaneously for similar reasons to the Collections Due Process Hearing. The best way to understand the Collections Appeals Program is to put the two programs side by side. Look at the different notices and actions they are designed to respond to.

A taxpayer may request Collection Due Process Hearing after they receive one of the following notices:

Federal Tax Lien Filing and Your Right to a Hearing Under IRC 6320
Final Notice—Notice of Intent to Levy and Your Right to a Hearing
Jeopardy Levy and Right of Appeal
Levy on Your State Tax Refund
Your Right to a Hearing
Post Levy Collection Due Process (CDP) Notice

They may request the Collections Appeals Program under these circumstances:

Before or after the IRS files a Notice of Federal Tax Lien, levies, or seizes property.
If the IRS terminates or proposes to terminate an installment agreement.
The IRS rejects an installment agreement.
The IRS modified or proposed to modify an installment agreement

Taxpayers may not appeal Collection Appeal Program in the US Tax Court. However, they tend to take less time than Collection Due Processing Hearings.

Penalty Abatements

In certain circumstances, the IRS can be surprisingly forgiving about penalties. Various administrative and legislatively required programs provide penalty relief. They can even refund penalties already paid. The main type of penalty relief is Reasonable Cause.

Available to those who can establish per IRS guidelines, as the name suggests, reasonable cause for why they did not pay their taxes on time or did not meet a filing deadline. In addition to Reasonable Cause Penalty Abatement, First Time penalty abatement also exists for otherwise compliant taxpayers with a substantially clean compliance history.

Reasonable Cause

Reasonable cause penalty relief is statutorily available to taxpayers in both the Internal Revenue Code and the Code of Federal Regulations. Its application rarified in the Internal Revenue Manual. This means that unlike other forms of penalty relief such as the First Time Abatement, taxpayers have the right to penalty relief if they meet the code’s code’s specific requirements. They may appeal a decision that denies relief that should qualify.

Reasonable cause penalty abatements are as much an art as a science or matter of law. These abatements require an understanding of what has been deemed reasonable over the years through challenge and litigation and an understanding of the current IRS posture around the collection of different types of tax, noncompliance, and other government interests.

Generally, factors such as health, age, mental status, financial status, education level, business prudence, reliance on the advice of a tax professional, and extenuating circumstances such as fire, natural disaster, death in the family, military service overseas, and serious illness will be considered when the IRS receives a request for abatement based on a reasonable cause argument.

First Time Penalty Abatements

The Internal Revenue Service has established procedures since 2001 for the abatement of certain penalties for taxpayers with clean compliance history. The First Time Abatement can abate Failure to File and Failure to File to Pay penalties assessed against the individual. For business taxpayers, abatement may also be requested for failure to deposit payroll taxes.

To qualify for First Time Abatement Treatment, the taxpayer’s prior three years of compliance for the return in question must be clean. “Clean” is defined as having no substantial penalties. Yet, claims are routinely denied over insubstantial amounts.

Besides, claims should not be denied by the IRS. If the taxpayer had a penalty assessed more than years prior, the taxpayer had an estimated penalty assessed in the past three years, received a First-Time abatement more than years prior for the tax return in question, or had penalties in subsequent years.

Reasonable Cause Assistant

In addition to improper denials due to poorly trained IRS employees on First Time Abatement procedures, the IRS uses a flawed decision-making software, the Reasonable Cause Assistant (RCA), to determine eligibility for penalty relief. The Reasonable Cause Assistant denies First Time Abatement requests consistently incorrectly.

It has yet to be reported as fixed, despite its undermining effect on the FTA program’s intent. Should a request be denied, a taxpayer’s representatives may ask for the determination to override. Then, ask to transfer to a manager. As a last resort, contact the taxpayer advocate for further help.

Taxpayers should know that First Time Abatement is an administrative relief measure. The IRS is not bound to provide it. No law exists from which a taxpayer can attempt to force the IRS to provide a First Time Abatement.

One may request First Time Abatements in writing, through services, or over the phone. Phone abatements have an undisclosed upper limit. At which point, a taxpayer or their representative must submit more formally the FTA.

Some practitioners report that this limit is in the vicinity of $1,000. Others have reported verbal First Time Abatements as high as $30,000. These discrepancies are possibly due to the relative size of the taxpayers’ amount due or changes in administrative posture over time.

Passports

A relatively new topic. As such, it is an IRS initiative that most people aren’t aware of. The IRS now seizes the passports of those with past-due taxes. Including citizens abroad who receive no formal notice of the IRS’s intent or of the action itself when completed.

Security Clearance, Known Persons, & Targeted Groups

The IRS relies on “voluntary compliance” to enforce taxes. This doesn’t mean that they view the payment of taxes as voluntary, as in you can choose whether or not to pay taxes without facing negative consequences. Rather, the IRS lacks the financial or personal resources to knock on every door from which they collect taxes.

Voluntarily means that assessing, filing, and paying tax without direct government prompting as part of the system the IRS relies on. However, if the IRS stopped enforcing the tax laws, a greater number of people could likely not file or pay. A voluntary compliance system enforces the law enough to keep most people paying taxes out of a sense of duty or fear of repercussion.

Government Employees & Public Officials

The IRS often tries to make public examples out of well-known non-compliant taxpayers. The IRS often targets government employees, public officials, and those with state and federal licenses or security clearances for extra compliance monitoring. While clearly not fair from an equality point of view, this is the compliance environment that taxpayers in those roles must live, work, and pay taxes in.

Representing such taxpayers requires an extra degree of sensitivity and planning. In particular, unlike taxpayers looking to pay the absolute minimum due, people in this group may want to prioritize other goals. For example, avoiding the filing of lien in the public record, a wage garnishment that alerts their employer to the issue, settling the issue out of court. The possible seizure of a passport or licensing document could impede their ability to work and travel.

Private Debt Collectors

Private Debt collectors are not new to the IRS. They have been absent for a while. The IRS recently restarted a program where Federal Tax Debts, usually owed by lower-income people. Larger debts kept in-house go off to private debt collectors paid commission on the amounts they collect.

These programs are rife with abuse. Shut down twice before, they failed to raise money. It cost more than they brought in because of the substantial abuse experienced by taxpayers at the hands of private agencies. Fortunately, you can easily return your file to the IRS.

Stop these collection agencies from harassing you. We actually believe so strongly that this course of action was a mistake. We file all the necessary paperwork to stop a private debt collector from harassing a taxpayer for free.

Interested in This Free Service?

Please contact us. Engaging in this free service also helps you understand why you might not want to file your file sent back to the IRS. We help you make an informed decision. Before moving a file back to the IRS from a private debt collection agency, there are several tactical considerations

IRS Representation