Strategies for When You Owe the IRS
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About this ebook
Don't pay lots of money to representatives who advertise on TV but do not deliver on the claims they make. Strategies for When You Owe the IRS will help you negotiate with the IRS and get the best deal for you. Learn about your rights, installment agreements, settlements, penalty abatements and more.
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Strategies for When You Owe the IRS - Marguerite Hammond
Strategies
For
When You Owe the IRS
By
Marguerite Hammond
Copyright © 2012 by Marguerite Hammond
Smashwords Edition
This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Please do not participate in or encourage the piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
About the Author
Marguerite Hammond is a former field tax collector for the IRS with 23 years field experience and six years’ experience as a front line manager. Ms. Hammond instructed newly hired IRS personnel. She also instructed experienced collectors at the IRS’s continuing education program. Ms. Hammond retired from the IRS with over 29 years’ experience.
Ms. Hammond has experience in all areas of collection, including installment agreements, settlement agreements, abating penalties and enforced collection such as levies and seizures.
To my son Tom whose interest in writing inspired me to rekindled my long lost desire to write.
Author’s Note
This book puts the Internal Revenue Service’s collection process in laymen terms and offers a variety of strategies to put you in the best bargaining position with the IRS. Marguerite walks you through the financial form, how to ask for abatement of penalties, and your appeal rights among many other topics.
This book is not an official document and should not be used as such.
Contents
Foreword
Part I
General Information
1. Voluntary Compliance System and Filing Returns
2. IRS Authority to Collect
3. The Notices
Part II
Individual Taxpayers
4. Streamlined Payment Plans
5. Financial Analysis and Installment Agreements
6. Revenue Officer’s & Collection
7. Not Collectible Accounts
8. Penalty Abatement
9. IRS Settlement Program
10. Bankruptcy Option
11. Enforced Collection
Part III
Business Taxpayers
12. Business Taxes
13. Installment Agreements for Businesses
14. Settlements for Businesses
15. Trust Fund Taxes and Personal Liability
16. Enforced Collection
17. Your Rights
Part IV
In Conclusion
18. Strategies & Tips Summarized
19. Common Business Errors
20. Post Script
Foreword
Hello. My name is Marguerite, and I was your worst nightmare.
I was a revenue officer with the Internal Revenue Service. A revenue officer is a field tax collector. When I joined the service I was told the revenue officer position was the most powerful enforcement position in the government. Not because we carried guns, we can’t. Not because we can arrest people, we don’t. But, because with the stroke of a pen I could seize your bank account, savings account, dividends, your wages and even your social security or other retirement income. If you’re a business I could seize your accounts receivables. I could file a lien on all your assets, tangible and intangible, real estate and personal property that you own now and acquire in the future for up to ten years (more if I felt it necessary). With one more signature I could seize stock, IRAs, vehicles, real estate, your business assets and other personal assets of value such as art. After a judicial review I could even seize your personal residence.
I write this book not to show you how to avoid or evade paying your taxes, but to show you how to broker the best deal with the IRS, when you do owe. For example, it may be advantageous to borrow and pay your taxes. The IRS also has payment plans and yes, settlement options.
If you owe the IRS, you do not have to get a CPA or attorney to represent you. But if you feel you need to have representation I would suggest you get someone local, particularly if you are dealing with a revenue officer. You want someone who can sit down, eyeball to eyeball with you and the revenue officer to plead your case and negotiate. It just isn’t the same trying to negotiate with phones, faxes and mail. Also, a revenue officer at some point will visit your business to determine the value of your assets and you want someone there to ensure any defects or flaws are properly accounted for in the valuation.
Frankly, too many of the 800 number
firms, like the ones we see on television, are in my opinion, scams. All representatives, including local ones get their money up front, frankly because people who owe taxes are credit risks. But an impersonal 800 number
firm can too easily just take your money and run. They don’t have to return your calls or consider refunding your money if they don’t perform. There are reports or some of these companies taking your money and never even calling the IRS.
Let’s go over some of their claims.
There’s a limited time, so call now.
Wrong. The IRS has ten years to collect and on rare occasions can extend that period another ten years. Except for the threat of liens and levies (seizures), there is no immediacy.
I settled for pennies on the dollar.
While it’s true the IRS has a settlement program, called Offer-in-Compromise, a full 70% of offers are rejected outright and most of the remaining are withdrawn or rejected for various reasons or settled for more than the original amount offered.
I had an agreement but I was only paying interest and penalties.
The IRS applies money to the oldest tax period first and to tax first, then to the interest and penalties of that tax period before it moves onto the next tax period. (By the way, banks first apply payments to the interest accrued for that month. The remaining amount of the payment goes to the principle.) It is true on some agreements the amount you owe will go up each month. These are called part pay
agreements. The IRS does set up payment agreements knowing they will never get full pay. At the end of the ten year collection period the remaining balance is written off.
Some 800 number
firms make claims they cannot keep, such as getting levies and liens released. A levy is a type of seizure of assets. A lien is a legal device that gives the IRS an interest in your property. A representative cannot just call and magically get a levy released. A lien attaches to your property for up to ten years and cannot be released unless the tax liability is full paid or the ten year period has lapsed. If you owe $5,000.00 or more, 90% of the time, a lien will be