We recently had a client who came to us with quite the State of Colorado income tax issue. He came to us with a $10,000 bill from the State. Further, the State of Colorado had actually assessed all of the tax liability he owed due to the fact he had not filed a tax return for almost 10 years. Needless to say we had our work cut out for us.
First and foremost we attempted to get a release or a reduction in the State of Colorado garnishment without providing the returns. We simply wanted the client to continue to pay on the tax liability, just not at 25% of his gross wages. Unfortunately our attempt failed. Due to the non compliance history and non filing the State would not budge on the garnishment. Understandably so based on the facts and circumstances presented in the case.
Our next step was to have the taxpayer prepare and remit all of the missing returns to our attention. As you can imagine with almost 10 years of returns missing it took him some time to get things wrapped up. The garnishment was a motivating factor as well because we wouldn’t be able to get it released without all of the returns being filed. Once we had all of the returns in hand we needed to take them down to the State of Colorado and personally deliver them in order to expedite the request of our garnishment reduction or release.
We met with the State of Colorado, handed in all of the missing returns, and were successful in getting a formal release of garnishment faxed to our clients employer. He was getting garnished at the rate of $500 weekly. The garnishment was fully released and reduced to $0. His tax liability also dropped significantly due to the original filings ($10,000 to $2,000). Ultimately we will set up a small plan on the remaining balance due thus resolving our clients 10 year tax problem. If you or someone you know is having similar troubles with the State of Colorado please let us know.