We know that it is very disconcerting when an IRS Audit letter arrives in the mail. Audits can take significant time away from your business and family, requiring you to gather significant records to substantiate each and every item reported on your tax return and develop a comprehensive understanding of tax law.

The IRS is very thorough in pursuing its mission to determine the accuracy of your tax return. If you don’t comply with the Auditors’ wishes, the IRS will recalculate your tax and present you with a tax bill which is likely to include substantial penalty and interest charges.

Many taxpayers decide to handle a tax audit themselves, and discover they may have been “penny wise,” avoiding a representative’s fee, but “pound foolish,” because they received a substantial bill for a significant tax deficiency. IRS Auditors are trained to gather more information from you than you have a legal obligation to provide. IRS Auditors know that most people fear them and are unaware of their rights—as a result, they know they can use that fear and ignorance to their advantage.

Rarely do our clients even have to talk with the IRS. We handle it all for you so that you needn’t take time off from your business or job to handle the bureaucracy and paperwork of the IRS. There is no need to experience lost wages or business; you simply forward notification of an audit to us and we handle it from beginning to end.

Every day the IRS computer systems are becoming more sophisticated. If you have neglected the filing of some of your tax returns, it is likely that you will receive communication from the IRS.

This is not a situation to take lightly. Failing to file your tax returns is a criminal offense. If you do not file, you can be prosecuted and punished with potential jail time, one year for each year not filed. There is no reason to risk potentially losing your freedom for failing to file your tax returns!

We are able to give you the peace of mind you deserve by helping you get in compliance with the law. If you voluntarily file your delinquent returns you will likely avoid further problems other than having to pay interest and penalties.

If you wait for the IRS to file your returns for you, they are filed in the best interest of the government, usually with little or no deductions to which you are entitled.

Before anything can be done to remove you from this predicament all tax returns must be filed. You must be current. In most cases, you will likely owe taxes, interest, and penalties after the returns are filed. Once we see how much is owed, we’ll set a course of action to get you back on track!

If tax returns have been filed but you aren’t able to pay what you owe, you may think that you will pay your taxes with next year’s refund. Before you know it, you find yourself several years in arrears and receiving a notice from the IRS, stating that you owe three or four times the original amount.

It is amazing how quickly tax penalties and interest add up. In such a case, you must either write the check to pay the full amount, including interest and penalties; or you can just keep ignoring the IRS letters while the penalties and interest keep accumulating. Eventually, the IRS will take stronger actions to collect what is owed to them. Let the professionals at Brian J. Hildebrant, CPA, P.C., assist you with your delinquency and work out a payment plan with the IRS. That’s our job and we are happy to help out!

The IRS views failure to pay payroll taxes as a major offense in the area of tax delinquency because a large portion of the payroll taxes were withheld from your employees. The failure to pay your company’s payroll taxes is tantamount to stealing your employees’ money in the eyes of the IRS. Because of this view, penalties for failing to pay your payroll taxes and filing your payroll tax returns on time are much more severe than other types of penalties. These penalties can drastically increase the amount you owe in a very short time.

If you are behind on paying payroll taxes for your company, please understand that the IRS is extremely aggressive pursuing collection of this type of tax. They would rather seize your business assets, close you down, sell your assets at auction, and put you out of business than allow you to continue to accrue additional payroll tax liabilities.

If you are behind on your payroll taxes, DO NOT meet with the IRS on your own. How you answer their initial questions can determine whether you stay in business or not. It is critical that you hire a professional representative who knows how the IRS operates. Our staff has extensive experience assisting clients in this area and are confident in our ability to communicate successfully with the IRS.

Federal Tax Liens can be devastating. When your taxes are not paid, the IRS establishes a lien against all of your assets (especially real estate). The IRS has the legal right to collect delinquent taxes from the sale of your assets, which includes just about everything you own.

A tax lien can be against you, your spouse, or your company. A lien against your company would seize your accounts receivables. When this is done, everything you own is subject to becoming the property of the United States Government.

Liens filed against you by the IRS also show up on your credit report and often prevent you from opening a checking account or borrowing against any assets, like your home. Banks don’t appreciate the extra work required of them when the IRS levies your accounts, nor do they want to be behind the IRS in the list of creditors to be paid from sales proceeds.

Levies can be very damaging to your financial life. A levy is the IRS’s way of quickly gaining your attention. Levies most commonly occur when IRS has tried to communicate with you but they have received no response. Levies are used to obtain control of your wages and other assets which you may own. Levies can cover assets such as checking accounts, autos, stocks, bonds, boats, paychecks, and even Social Security checks.

The IRS can levy your bank accounts, in which case they remove funds from your accounts to cover your tax liabilities or alleged tax liabilities. The IRS will take the entire balance of your account. If this amount does not cover what is owed, they will continue to raid your accounts until you cover your tax liability. They know that levying your bank account will cause checks to bounce, alerting many people that you have tax problems. If this occurs, funds are generally held by your bank for twenty-one days before they are remitted to the IRS. Please contact us if this happens because we can frequently have the levy reversed if we have enough time left in the twenty-one-day time period.

An even worse method of tax collection is a wage levy (or garnishment). This results in a portion of your pay check going to the IRS. You are allowed to keep only a small amount of your payroll until the debt is paid.

If that doesn’t accomplish what the IRS wants, they will pull go as far as seizing your assets, and selling them at auction. That includes everything you own; home, cars, boats, jewelry, motorcycles, insurance policies, retirement funds, anything of value.

We are often able to get those levies released and help you get out of this terrible situation. Our goal is to assist you in meeting your obligations with the IRS in an affordable manner, allowing you to get your financial life back on track.

The IRS is allowed to issue a notice of “intent to Levy”, allowing you 30 days to work with them to either demonstrate that you do not owe them the money which they are attempting to collect or to make arrangements to pay what is owed. If they do not receive any communication from you, they may issue a wage garnishment to your employer. Your employer is required by law to collect a large percentage of each of your paychecks and remit these funds to the IRS. This is likely to leave you short of funds for paying your other bills, and it will continue until your balance with the IRS is paid in full.

We are commonly retained to negotiate the release of IRS wage garnishments by arranging a payment plan. The payment plan we negotiate is always more favorable than any IRS wage garnishment. It allows you to receive your entire paycheck without fear of future wage garnishments.

If you owe money to the IRS but are unable to pay in one lump sum, a Payment Plan may be the way to resolve your problem. Setting up a payment plan with the IRS gives you a little more time to pay off your tax debts.

Unfortunately, penalties and interest will continue to be charged on your outstanding balance as you pay the debt off. You are required by law to pay the interest on your tax debt.

Many taxpayers are not aware that they can obtain a copy of their IRS files. Most people would be surprised to learn how much the IRS knows about them. Obtaining a copy of your IRS file is critical in analyzing the options available to resolve your tax problems. Requesting copies of your IRS file is best done by a professional who understands how to obtain them without raising any red flags as well as how to interpret the information in your file.