Are you looking to stop or avoid wage garnishment? Can you support yourself and your family on half of your paycheck? Let IRS Tax Freedom give you back your peace of mind! When you ignore, choose not to pay, or can’t afford to pay an outstanding tax bill, the IRS will take alternate actions. One of their methods is wage garnishment, which means they will take part of your wages in what is known as a “continuous levy.”  Prior to continuous levy enforcement, it’s likely that you received a warning of an imminent wage levy.  When the amount due isn’t settled prior to the levy, the IRS w ..read more

Liens and levies are tools the IRS uses to collect back taxes. Here’s more about each one — and how to avoid them both. If you have a tax debt and haven’t made arrangements with the IRS to pay your tax balance, the IRS sends a series of notices to try to collect the back taxes and any penalties & fees incurred. The IRS will then start its enforced collection actions, using the many tools it has at its disposal, including tax liens and levies. How the IRS issues levies The IRS can issue a levy to seize (take) your income and assets. The process follows several steps. First, the IRS must pro ..read more

Are You Behind on Filing Your Tax Returns? Paying taxes isn’t a suggestion. It’s a requirement. A cold, hard reality. The IRS has identified taxpayers who fail to file income tax returns and who effectively stop paying income tax, as a serious threat to tax administration and the American economy. The IRS uses information returns from employers, companies, and certain agencies to determine whether taxpayers owe any taxes. And, while they do a lot of outreach and education to minimize non-filing, of course, they’re responsible for the enforcement of tax laws to reduce the number of unfiled tax ..read more

There are lots of solutions to solving tax debt with the IRS: Offers in Compromise, IRS Payment Plans, IRS Non-Collectible Status, and the IRS’s 10-year statute on collections – these are all useful tools. But there are situations where these tools won’t solve the entire problem. Most people would be surprised to learn that bankruptcy can make good sense as a solution where tax debt exists. A properly planned case can wipe away the tax debt obligation on many types of tax liabilities and it can solve a host of other problems at the same time, including providing the ability to challenge the v ..read more

When tax payment deadlines are missed, with no return being filed – which should always be done even if no money can be paid at that time – penalties and interest begin to accrue. And at the rates enforced, things begin to snowball very quickly. Penalty abatement is the removal of penalties after they have been assessed to a taxpayer and part of negotiating with the IRS. Unfortunately, most taxpayers assessed an IRS penalty do not request relief or are denied relief because they do not follow some basic do’s and don’ts, which we’ll outline here. Now, before we dive into the different typical I ..read more

If you are financially unable to make tax payments, the IRS may qualify your account as “currently not collectible”. This means you can defer making payments to the IRS until you’re financially able to pay. What Does Currently Not Collectible Status Imply? Once the IRS determines your account is currently not collectible, that designation means they won’t garnish your wages or levy your bank accounts, and they won’t require that you set up an installment agreement (for the time being). You must have little or no money left over after paying essential living expenses each month, such as rent, u ..read more

An offer in compromise (OIC) is a legal, binding agreement between a taxpayer and the IRS that settles a taxpayer’s liability for less than the full amount owed, sometimes for a lot less than the full amount owed. This is the only debt settlement program that has been codified into law in the Internal Revenue Code section 7122. That is why I call it a legal, binding agreement. And it takes skilled negotiation with the IRS to get it done properly. If an OIC gets rejected, it’s an “act of congress” to reapply. In essence, you really have one shot to get it right. There are three types of OICs ..read more

The Internal Revenue Service offers a variety of options to taxpayers who can’t immediately pay their taxes in full. A partial payment installment agreement (PPIA) is one of these options. Requesting a PPIA with the IRS is easier and less time-consuming than requesting an offer in compromise, but it still requires attention to detail and you have to know the rules and requirements. A PPIA is a payment plan with the IRS that allows you to pay off a portion of your taxes owed in monthly payments until the tax liability expires. The IRS only has 10 years to collect on a tax balance from the time ..read more

An Installment Agreement is an agreement between the IRS and the taxpayer that enables the taxpayer to pay their debt over time (generally 60-72 months) when he or she can’t pay the full amount owed in a lump sum. 4 Types of Installment Agreements Under the IRS Fresh Start Program If the taxpayer owes $10,000 or less, has all tax returns filed, has no enforced collection, and can pay the balance back in 36 equal monthly installments, the IRS will automatically approve the taxpayers acceptance into its installment payment plan program. If the taxpayer owes up to $25,000, has all returns filed ..read more

You’ve probably heard one of the huge tax resolution firms, online, on TV, or radio, stating that the IRS writes off millions of dollars each year, and the inference is to get you to want to tap into that. Usually what’s been advertised lately has been an offer in compromise (OIC) also known as the IRS Fresh Start Program. They want you to think that’s the answer to your tax problem and that there’s money to burn to help you out. Sound familiar? Get beyond the myths and the hype of offer in compromise or the fresh start program There are a lot of myths – mostly marketing hype – regarding “fact ..read more