While IRS Tax Liens are not as serious as a levies, they are a warning shot across the bow and if action is not taken to satisfy the IRS, a levy or wage garnishment may be in the works. A lien will prevent a property owner from selling their home until the amount in question has been paid, or the lien has been removed by a court order. The way it works is should the property owner sell their property, the IRS will take the money owed from the amount from the sale. Obviously this will keep a property owner from choosing to sell any property with a tax lien.
There are three (3) categories of OIC’s: Doubt as to Collectibility; Doubt as to Liability; and Effective Tax Administration. Doubt as to Collectibility means that the IRS believes that it will not be able to collect the full amount of the tax owed based on the taxpayers ability to pay. Doubt as to Liability means that there is a legitimate doubt that the taxpayer owes the amount the IRS has assessed to the taxpayer. Effective Tax Administration is where although there is no doubt that the taxpayer owes the taxes and the taxpayer could pay the taxes, exceptional circumstances exist which allow the IRS to waive the amount due when the taxpayer demonstrates that it would create an economic hardship.
According to a new report by the Treasury Inspector General, the IRS has waived essentially $1.4 billion in delinquent taxes between 2002 and 2008 by failing to file federal tax liens. In order to protect its claims against delinquent taxpayers, the IRS must file a federal tax lien, which establishes the IRS’ priority among other creditors. However, in certain cases, the IRS can decide not to file a tax lien. When the IRS agent decides not to file a tax lien, they must document the taxpayer’s file to state the basis for their decision not to file the tax lien.
Due to a confusing and arguably unfair provision in Federal Law, military spouses may be paying taxes twice on military benefits. There are an estimated 57,000 military spouses who may be affected by this Federal provision. These are spouses who received Federal benefits as a result of their late spouse’s military service and have now remarried. After the military spouse passes away and the surviving spouse has begun to receive benefits, in the event that they remarry, the Federal Government can request the full amount of the government benefits to be repaid. If the surviving spouse does not cooperate and set up a repayment plan, the government can begin garnishing funds to be repaid. The problem is that when the surviving spouse received the benefits initially, they paid taxes on the benefits. When they repay the benefits to the government, they are required to pay the full amount back, so they are essentially paying taxes twice on benefits they will never have received.
I find that most people who don’t deal with their IRS problems until something ugly happens (like tax liens, seizure of property, bank accounts and other devastating IRS extreme measures) have one thing in common..
Did you know that you have the power as an individual taxpayer to appeal almost any decision made by the IRS? In fact, you can appeal audit findings, penalties and interest, rejected offers-in-compromise, liens, seizures, garnishments and other collection actions.
If you suspect that the IRS is about to start “clipping your paycheck” and leaving you without a livable wage, it’s time to take action and stop it while you still can.
Penalties and interest add up by the day if you haven’t paid the IRS what you owe them. And they add up big-time if you haven’t filed at all. Every day that you put off taking care of your IRS problem only makes it worse.
One way to get out of IRS debt is to be declared “Currently Non-Collectible” (CNC) by the IRS. Note the term “Currently”…As the name implies, Currently Non-Collectible means that the IRS considers that your current financial situation makes it impossible for you to pay your taxes and they determine that they cannot collect the money from you…at least not for now.
Is it really possible to pay the IRS “pennies on the dollar” and have the rest of your tax bill forgiven? Yes – it is possible…but it’s not very likely. It’s called an Offer-In-Compromise – and it used to be the only legitimate way to negotiate an actual lowering of the amount of taxes owed to the IRS by a taxpayer…sometimes far less.