IRS back Tax Relief Attorney?
Sunday, October 25th, 2009 at
8:56 am
I keep seeing these commercials making the people on them look like the victim of IRS harassment buy antibiotics without prescription and sympathizing with them. Aren’t they in that situation because they blatantly disregarded filing their taxes? How does the program/lawyer help work?
The IRS does have a program where it is possible in LIMITED circumstances to settle for less than you owe. However those ads on TV are less than honest and in some cases outright fraudulent. They fail to mention than only around 20% of all OICs are ever approved or that the IRS has up to two years to consider an OIC. The claim that they will stop IRS collection notices or actions is not true. While the IRS may withhold enforced collection actions while the application is under review you’ll generally be expected to make payments during that period.
At any rate to have any chance of success you must offer more than what the IRS reckons that they could collect using their most draconian enforced collection procedures over the SOL period permitted under the law. Successful OICs are typically submitted by the elderly and disabled who have little chance of ever improving their financial position. Some are also settled by someone with a "guardian angel"such as a new spouse with significant resources who just wants to make the tax issues go away.
Not all cases of heavy tax bills are due to blatant disregard for filing returns. In fact, the IRS won’t even consider an OIC if there are any open tax years at all. Some are due to bad planning by the taxpayer and many are due to ignorance of the law. I recently wrapped one up successfully for an elderly woman who signed over the deed to her properties to her drug-addict son. He subsequently sold it and blew it on dope, gambling, prostitutes, etc. Due to the value of the property involved — several million dollars — she had a Gift Tax liability of nearly $1,000,000. She is now destitute, living in a small apartment on a fairly meager Social Security pension. The IRS settled her debt for less than $500. The son owes a pile in capital gains taxes but due to his age the IRS won’t be nearly as flexible with him as they were with his poor mother. (I’ve dropped handling his case due to his attitude.)
YES, and IRS is strictly limited in what they can do. They are chasing these people because they didn’t file taxes, fraudulently claimed refunds or deductions, or just didn’t pay what they owe the IRS.
But these leeches want to get hired, so they advertise to the sympathies of these deadbeats.
There’s one commercial I hear, All these bills, that it’s not your fault, file bankruptcy. Yeah, who ran up the bills, buying stuff they couldn’t afford and probably didn’t really need? Who kept buying and NOT paying?
The IRS has a program called an "Offer In Compromise" in which a taxpayer settles their tax debt for less than what is owed. It is based on ability to pay and not on willingness to pay. Basically, if you sold everything you own and you aren’t making very much money and you still couldn’t pay the debt. The commercials are very misleading. They make it look very easy and it is not. The IRS rejects over 80% of submitted offers.
Go to IRS.gov and search for "Offer in Compromise".
The general rule of thumb however is to never call any of the firms that advertise on TV or Radio. They over promise, over charge and then, under deliver.