Have you been assessed an IRS tax penalty? Did you pay your tax return late, fail to pay your tax, failed to remit tax deposits timely, or simply don’t know what to do when it comes to your IRS tax penalty? Good news, we are going to give a brief overview of the first time abatement clause as it relates to IRS tax penalty issues.
All too often a taxpayer may only fall behind for one year, owe a few thousand, pay it off, along with a $400 or $500 IRS tax penalty. In other situations, an employer may fail to remit federal tax deposits timely, or maybe fail to remit one deposit timely. Most cases with first time offenders, the IRS will waive some of the IRS Tax Penalties relative to the case. The case described below is a huge win for us as it relates to IRS tax penalty issues.
In this particular case I have a client who accrued IRS tax debt while she was married. The debt was accrued in direct relation to her ex husband’s business income. None the less, she filed jointly and was assessed the liability. We called the IRS and discussed several concerns about the IRS tax penalty. First and foremost, when was it assessed? How much in IRS tax penalties are we looking at? Finally, the IRS asked what are we ultimately going to do to get the debt resolved? A few other important factors to think about in the case were; has the taxpayer ever accrued an IRS tax penalty previously, more importantly, in the past 3 years? Has the taxpayer been current and compliant since the IRS tax penalty was accrued? Fortunately, we were able to give the IRS all the right answers.
Luckily, my client, who owed $71,000 at the time of the call, qualified for the first time abatement. I was able to successfully abate over $10,000 in IRS tax penalties on the account under both the first time abatement clause as well as the reasonable cause criteria. Again, we are still working toward an overall settlement, however, it was a nice victory. There were no prerequisites other than those mentioned above. We didn’t have to set up a payment plan, or promise to pay the debt in full. We simply asked for an abatement of the IRS tax penalty in question.
If you or someone you know has IRS tax penalty issues, please call us directly at 720-398-6088 or visit our website at www.htg2020.wpengine.com for more information!