QUESTION:
I haven’t filed my tax returns in several years. I prepared the one year and was going to owe more than I could pay. I’ve been afraid to file ever since. What will happen if I file them all now?
ANSWER:
You should file those tax returns because until the returns are filed, the IRS may collect from you until the end of time. You will also help reduce the amount of penalties that will be assessed against you for not filing. Practically speaking, when you file a late return, the IRS will assess interest and civil penalties against you. The civil penalties that can reach up to 25% of your tax due and also a late-filing penalty that can range from ½% to 1% per month. Not to mention the interest that is accruing all the while that is generally around 8% and is compounded daily. Before the IRS can begin to negotiate with you regarding your tax liability whether it be for a monthly installment agreement or to totally reduce your tax liability with an offer in compromise you will be required to file the last seven years of tax returns. If you haven’t filed your tax returns lately because you don’t know how you will be able to pay the tax, please contact my office to see how we can help you settle your tax liability or set up a payment plan with the IRS.
“You cannot solve a problem in the same state of consciousness in which the problem arose.”
- Albert Einstein
I came across this quote recently while attending a legal conference. It immediately hit me how close to home this hits for a lot of my clients. All of my IRS tax resolution clients have a problem. Sometimes they have been dealing with the issues for years. I can see how many clients get stuck in these situations because they never change their level of consciousness. They never get past some of the initial issues – even when the IRS tells them no matter what excuse they have they will still be liable for the taxes, penalties, and interest.
Once you can raise your level of consciousness where you can get past seeing the problems exclusively and how they arose, and begin to look for solutions to the problems you can get to a place where you are ready to solve the problem.
Hopefully, as an attorney, I can assist my clients in raising their level of consciousness by providing them competent counsel, good legal advice and all of the information they require to get make a decision that will allow them to solve their problem.
I have had several visitors to my site recently who found my site with the following query:
“i have filed my income taxes but do not have the money to pay what is the irs statute of limitations”.
The main question being asked in this query is what is the IRS statute of limitations for collecting tax liability that I owe. I have answered this question several times before on this blog, see the posts below:
IRS Statute of limitations Post 1
IRS Statute of Limitations Post 2
IRS Statute of Limitations Post 3
Essentially, after the IRS has assessed taxes against you - and in most cases your tax returns are filed before the taxes to be assessed (as stated in the search engine query) - the IRS may collect those taxes from you for ten years from the date of assessment. The date of assessment varies depending on when you filed your tax returns. If you filed your 1996 tax return in March 1997, the tax was assessed on April 15, 1997 and therefore the collection statute of limitations would have expired on April 15, 2007. If this is the case for you, then the IRS may no longer harass you or collect from you for those taxes.
If you are still receiving collection letters for taxes that are older than ten years there may be a valid reason. I can assist you in determining how much longer the IRS may collect taxes from you for various years. Please visit the contact page and send me an e-mail or call me to discuss how I can help you out in your situation.
Phillipians 3: 12-14: 12Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. 13Brothers, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, 14I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.
In difficult times, we must forget about the past and move on toward the goal that Christ has called us to. This should be applied to our everyday life. For me, I have to forget about the situations and circumstances that placed me into the position of leadership and stress that I am in now. Rather than learning the ropes for several months or years, I was thrown in to manage an established law practice after only a few months of learning the ropes. I am pressing on, for I know the end of the trial is near, and I am learning more and more. I have to know that Christ has a purpose for this. The Bible states in Jeremiah 29: 11, “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the LORD, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’”
I should do a better job of helping my clients to see this truth in their cases. Many of my clients, regardless of whether it is an IRS tax case or a family court case, the cases are drawn out over many months or years. This causes stress, etc. I admit that i need to do a better job of assuring my clients that the end is near, and that even though it is hard now and we have a lot of work to do, we will be able to work towards a solution as long as we “press on.”
I’m going to begin a new series on my blog where I discuss a particular search term that was used to find my site through Google, Yahoo!, MSN Live or some other search engine. It is very interesting for me to see how some of my site visitors make it to www.atkinssc.com for tax law advice, and I would have never come up with some of the search terms.
Of course I would like my site to rank very highly for terms such as “offer in compromise” and “installment agreement” or other highly searched terms relating to my IRS tax resolution practice. However, there is research that the “long tail” keywords where there may be thousands and thousands of keywords with only a few visits apiece each month provide more traffic to my site than the two or three “big money” keywords. Another positive for the “long tail” keywords is they are more qualified traffic for my site. For instance, someone may be looking for a payment plan on a credit card debt rather than an IRS liability when they type in “installment agreement” into Google, however if someone types “how do I set up an installment agreement with the IRS” into Google, they are definitely a more qualified visitor to my site, and by more qualified I mean more likely to desire my particular service.
The first installment should be coming around very soon.
Question:
I know the law changed recently allowing the IRS to use private debt collection companies to assist them in collecting outstanding tax debts. I was wondering how I would know if a private debt collector was calling or if it was someone trying to get my personal information.
Answer:
You are correct that the IRS has contracted with private collection companies to assist them in collecting outstanding tax liabilities from taxpayers. There are very specific types of cases that are actually assigned to these private collection agencies. The problem is, privacy laws prevent the private collection companies from immediately informing the person who answers the telephone the reason for the telephone call. Instead, the private collectors inform the person who answers the telephone that they are calling regarding a “private business matter” and would require that person to provide personal identification information before actually informing them that they are calling to collect income taxes. I know most people would definitely not be willing to provide their personal information to someone on the telephone much less if they have not been informed who is calling or the reason for the call. This leads to the private collection companies mistreating the taxpayers by continuously calling and harassing them. If you are being harassed by the private collection companies regarding outstanding taxes, please call me to see how I can help you. Your initial consultation is always free and you are under no obligation.