IRS hardship status is a way for individuals experiencing financial difficulties to seek relief from certain tax obligations. To qualify, you must provide sufficient evidence of your financial situation, such as income and expense details. This information helps the IRS assess whether you are unable to pay your taxes in full without causing undue hardship. Additionally, you may need to demonstrate that you have explored other options, like installment agreements or offers in compromise, before requesting hardship status. The IRS carefully reviews each case on an individual basis to determine eligibility, aiming to provide assistance to those in genuine need.
IRS Tax Debt Relief With IRS Fresh Start Program
How to Get IRS Tax Debt Relief
Did the pandemic make you late in filing your federal income tax return? Have you fallen behind on paying your IRS taxes? If it has, you are not the only one looking for IRS back tax relief.
Over 22 million taxpayers in the United States did not file their tax returns or are behind on payments. This was true even before the pandemic started.
The law requires us to pay federal income tax. This year, the IRS introduced a People First Initiative. This initiative offers help to taxpayers facing hardships due to COVID-19.
This relief included delaying some installment payments for agreements and offers in compromise. It also involved limiting certain collection and enforcement actions.
Past-Due tax returns were still due, and the IRS “continued its work to secure unfiled tax returns” but told taxpayers’ in an official statement that they “should file any delinquent 2018 return (and their 2019 return) on or before July 15, 2020,” thus moving the April 15th deadline and extending the filing season.
Mission-critical functions continued with certain IRS services, such as live assistance on telephones, processing paper tax returns, and responding to correspondence, which were and are still extremely limited.
Current-year tax return bills did not go away, and unpaid taxes from prior years still accrued penalties and interest.
If things have been tight financially, it can be easy to ignore the task of filing and paying your federal taxes to the IRS. Some might think that they can get caught up “next year” when things get better.
However, unfortunately, for many, their financial hardship won’t get better, and they will skip tax filing again. And maybe again, allowing the situation to snowball.
At first, you might believe you can avoid paying the IRS. However, the IRS will eventually find you. When you procrastinate, penalties and interest add up. This amount can be much higher than what you would owe if you filed your returns and paid your taxes on time.
Letters from the IRS will come eventually, and if the non-compliance goes on too long, the government may freeze bank accounts and take your cash using a tax levy.
What Can The IRS Do If You Fail To Get IRS Back Tax Relief?
The Internal Revenue Service Restructuring and Reform Act of 1998 was an important law. It helped restore respect for individual taxpayers in the system. It forced the IRS to more fully communicate with the public and grant taxpayers “due process” rights.
But make no mistake about it, the IRS is not a joke and has almost unlimited power. They can take your car and house. They can also garnish your wages. They can empty your bank account and retirement fund. They can restrict your travel by seizing your passport.
They will take anything valuable, like jewelry, family heirlooms, artwork, or your gun collection. They can even take part of your social security earnings.
By then, the penalties and interest will be so high that it will feel like an impossible situation to get out of.
Did you know that some IRS debt may not be forgiven if one declares bankruptcy? This is correct.
Just the anxiety alone is not worth getting behind on your taxes. Especially now, when everyone needs to lower their stress and keep their immune system strong to fight the coronavirus.
For some, the added stress could cause a more severe illness. That is the last thing you need. In a worst-case scenario, it can lead to lost wages and hospital bills, adding to your IRS debt.
Save Your Marriage With IRS Back Tax Relief
You owe it to yourself and your loved ones to begin the journey of coming clean with the IRS. You will feel a great sense of relief when you take the first step to resolve your IRS issues. A heavy burden will be lifted from your shoulders.
Sleep at night with IRS Fresh Start Program
So, let’s see if we can begin to relieve some of that anxiety. We will take a look at all of the steps and options that you have when you get behind in filing or paying your federal income taxes to the IRS.Â
Facts about IRS Back Tax Relief or Tax Debt Resolution
Here are some facts about resolving your debt with the IRS:
1. The IRS wants to work with taxpayers and grant IRS back tax relief The IRS is actually on your side, in a way. The agency is typically eager and happy to collect old debts. It truly wants to work with taxpayers, but there are many, many rules you need to know about and a process to follow.
2. Only three types of professionals can represent you before the IRS.
While you can represent yourself in front of the IRS, It might not be the best idea, especially if your debt is very high or you’ve ignored the situation for a long time.
There are only three types of professionals that can represent your case at the IRS:
1) CPAs, Certified Public Accountants. But be careful: not all CPAs are experienced in IRS representation.
2) EAs, enrolled agents Again, make sure the EA has experience representing clients before the IRS.
3) Attorneys. Same story as above. Not all attorneys are tax attorneys, and not all tax attorneys have a bustling representation practice.
A great question to ask anyone you are looking to hire is, “What is your offer-in-compromise acceptance rate?” 3. You’ll probably need to get your bookkeeping caught up.
If you’re behind on your taxes, it can often follow that you are behind on your bookkeeping as well. Anyone you hire is going to need good numbers in order to work with you, so a good first step is to catch up on your bookkeeping.
Often, tax resolution professionals provide bookkeeping catch-up services. They’ll do the minimum you need in order to get you or your business into compliance.
4. You will probably need to open all of your IRS mail.
Yep, we know you. It’s sitting in a stack somewhere in your home. If you haven’t opened the mail, start opening it up.
It’s helpful for tax professionals to know what type of notice you received. In most cases, tax resolution specialists will know the letter by form number, and that will give them an idea of where to start with your case.
The Internal Revenue Service, state tax agencies, and local entities will send a letter if one of the following happens:
You missed a payment deadline for payroll taxes.
- You missed a deadline for filing payroll tax reports.
- You missed a deadline for filing your personal or corporate income tax returns.
- You miss a deadline for paying the tax due on your personal or corporate income tax returns.
- You miss a deadline for filing and/or paying corporate franchise tax due.
- An amount paid is short of or over what the IRS or another tax agency calculates as due.
- The agency notices a discrepancy on any of your tax returns and needs an explanation.
- You have been selected for an audit.
- You failed to respond to previous correspondence.
Getting into Compliance for IRS Back Tax Relief
Here is what you need to do to get into “compliance” with the IRS. You can’t have any debt forgiven until you get into compliance.
5. You should almost always file your past-due tax returns, but there are some exceptions, and filing needs to be done carefully so additional debt is not triggered.
Before any debt can be forgiven, the taxpayer needs to get into compliance.
This means all past-due returns must be filed. You don’t have to pay off all your debt at this time; we’ll talk about what you need to pay in the next item.
However, there are a couple of really big “ifs” when it comes to this step. In rare situations, filing can trigger more debt. Also, filing in a particular way can trigger more debt.
That’s why it just makes sense to get a tax resolution professional involved in every step of this process, so they can keep you out of more trouble than you’re already in.
6. Pay your current taxes.
While you don’t have to pay all of your old IRS debt, you do have to pay your current taxes. This is part of getting into compliance. You need to be able to show the IRS that you can pay your current taxes.
This means that if you have a job as an employee, withholding is being withheld from your current paychecks. Or, if you’re an entrepreneur taking draws, you are currently making your estimated tax payments.
Paying Off Your IRS Debt: Options for IRS Back Tax Relief
Here are the options you have for paying off your IRS debt.
7. Pay off the entire amount, including penalties and interest.
If you can afford to, just pay it off. You will save on legal fees, but if you’re a first-time offender, you may be paying penalties and interest that you might have gotten out of if you hired someone.
8. If the IRS has made an error, get the error corrected.
For this, you need a tax resolution professional; they can get into the RIS files and find what they have on you. It can be scary to talk to an IRS person directly.
Review the return for errors, amend it, and file a paper return with the IRS.
IRS errors usually refer to when the IRS files a return on your behalf (called a “Substitute For Return” or SFR) and only uses the info they have on hand. Therefore, no deductions are used.
9. Spouse issue You may also have a special situation with your spouse if they promised to file and did not or they do not file correctly, or they don’t pay.
In some cases, you can claim that you were the ” innocent spouse” and get your account corrected.
If you are an injured or innocent spouse the debt might not be yours to pay.
First-Time Penalty Abatement Fortunately, the IRS has also created the FTA – first-time penalty abatement administrative waiver.
As a business or an individual taxpayer, you may receive a penalty on top of what you owe to the IRS.
It allows compliant taxpayers to request abatement or remove certain penalties.
A penalty abatement is a tax problem resolution designed to fully eliminate or lessen the degree of IRS penalties.
The IRS penalties can roll out penalties that range from imprisonment to civil fines.
Those fines can be over 25 percent of the total owed to the IRS.
If you have tried applying for an offer in compromise and it was rejected, penalty abatement is the next best tax problem resolution to consider.
You can use it when negotiating repayment method terms or an installment agreement.
These agreements are initial payment plans, and allow you to pay your debt over a time you establish with the IRS.
There are several types of installment agreements:
- Guaranteed;
- Streamlined;
- In Business; and
- Routine.
11. Understand RCP: Reasonable Collection Potential One of the key concepts in getting IRS back tax relief can be Reasonable Collection Potential or RCP.
It is the basis for making an offer to the IRS as to what you can pay.
RCP is a complicated formula based on the assets and income you currently have.
A tax representation professional can work with you to create a personal budget that can be used to present an offer to the IRS.
We will discuss offers a little later in this article.
When good, hard work is performed to create the budget, the taxpayer’s chances of getting their offer accepted by the IRS improve.
12. Offer in Compromise for IRS Back Tax Relief One of the most popular yet misunderstood programs the IRS has for settling an outstanding tax debt is the Offer-in-Compromise or “OIC” for IRS Back Tax Relief. An Offer-in-Compromise is where the IRS accepts less than the total owed by a taxpayer to settle the taxpayer’s outstanding tax debt.
What many taxpayers do not understand is the OIC program, at its core, is a formula. Hence many Offers filed by taxpayers and practitioners are not accepted because they fail to consider the formula, thereby filing Offers with the IRS that stand no chance of success from the moment they are filed.
Whatever your situation, we are here for you when you are ready to get caught up, and the sooner, the better.
We can help you relieve that huge psychological burden, so you feel lighter and free from all that stress.
The IRS is very aggressive about coming after non-filers and non-payers. So even if you do not owe that much, you’ll want to file right away to stop the penalties and interest from adding up.
If the letter says you have penalties and/or interest due, it is very important to respond quickly so the penalties and interest will not accumulate and grow to a higher amount due.
If you do not respond, the IRS & other tax agencies can apply liens, levies, garnishments, and seizures to collect payment.
For example, they have frozen bank accounts so that the owner cannot access their money.
You do not want it to escalate to this level. Call 844-888-1040 or click here to schedule a meeting with Keith today
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