Category: IRS
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Disowning the IRS disaster
This week I created a form letter email to set the background expectations before scheduling a talk with a current or prospective client on a tax resolution issue. It is certainly not something that I ever imagined would be necessary in almost four decades of tax practice. But it is critical, I think, to set…
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41 Federal Tax Changes for 2021
Many of us are playing ‘catch up’ on tax planning for 2021 and that means a greater risk of paying more than is necessary. The tax filing season for 2020 ended two days ago and so that means that tax professionals like me are suddenly devoting 100% of our efforts to reducing clients’ tax bills…
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Disagree with IRS? Seven bullet points to know first
If you received a written notice from IRS this year, you are among the largest number of taxpayers ever to be among this group. This post lists seven basic bullet points to consider first: IRS communicates through letters delivered via U.S. mail service. Communications via text message, phone, overnight delivery, email or fax are highly…
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Unlicensed tax preparers
Key points of unlicensed tax preparers: There are about 500,000 unlicensed tax preparers in the U.S. IRS is concerned about fraud and incompetence among tax preparers. There is no implication that all unlicensed preparers are problematic. We need these unlicensed tax preparers in our economy. Other tax preparers – attorneys, CPAs and EAs – are…
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Tax provisions of the infrastructure bill
Why are we discussing this? The infrastructure bill passed the Senate this month with a strong majority support but is not yet law. What tax provisions are included? Cryptocurrency broker reporting is the hot topic. The bill also includes a longer tax filing extension after disasters. (This is important because we expect to see more natural…
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What to do if you receive a ‘Notice of Intent to Levy’ from IRS
Beginning tomorrow, the IRS intends to dramatically increase the number of aggressive enforcement action notifications. Thousands will receive these scary notices within the week. Collections using new technology and aggressive techniques will likely continue to ramp up over the next few years. If you receive a collection notice, I strongly recommend: don’t panic, most tax…
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Shockingly poor IRS customer service (and what to do about it)
We knew from earlier IRS statements that about one million tax returns from 2019 remain unprocessed and I’ve covered that in earlier blog posts. Many of these are paper filed returns. But now we hear that 16 to 17 million tax returns for 2020 are backlogged and many of these people are waiting for refunds.…
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Relief from post-pandemic tax stress
One of the most important concepts in U.S. taxation today is the principle that the government cannot levy against taxpayer assets in the case of economic hardship. Never has this been more important than in this post-pandemic environment. The IRS is dramatically increasing aggressive tax collection practices that, in many cases, are causing stress to…
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How to resolve a tax dispute
About one in four of us will receive notification from a tax collection authority about a missing payment or dispute in the amount of taxes due. Most of these are “mismatch” issues where the information that the tax authority has does not match the information on the tax returns that you filed. The mismatch may…
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Low Income Taxpayer Clinics
Time and again we see that taxpayers who run into trouble should not attempt to resolve the problem themselves. It almost always makes sense to rely on professional representation. A professional will usually reduce the tax liability by far more than their fee. But tax professionals can be expensive and not all taxpayers can afford…