We had a client come to us in April of this year with a $60,000 tax bill. His greatest concern was not only savings, but also making sure he could sell his home with the least amount of exposure to his IRS tax liability. We immediately began working on his case.
The first step we took was to file our Power of Attorney form and find out the current status of his IRS case file. Once we found out his balance dues we instantly requested a collection hold with the taxing authorities. The collection hold enabled us to work on a strategy that would work for both the taxpayer and the IRS. In the same call we also requested transcript data to show the filing dates, tax assessment dates, collection expiration dates, as well as payments, penalties, and interest. Finally, we double checked the status of his account. At the moment we found his account was in currently non collectible. We were very pleased with this status as the IRS was not asking for any payments or financial data for the moment. We began to inform the taxpayer of his current situation with the IRS.
His tax bill was fairly old and stemmed from a former business he was a part of. He also had some individual income tax liability as well. We thought the statutes would be in a position to expire, although we weren’t exactly sure as we hadn’t received the transcript data as of yet. However, once we received the transcript data we found out the majority of the tax bill was set to expire in July of 2014. Now here is the tricky part, the client was getting ready to sell his house and wanted to list it on the market as soon as July. With the hot real estate market here in Denver I kindly asked him to wait until I could verify the expiration of the collection statutes.
Once the liability had expired we followed up with the lien department and made sure the tax liens had been self-released. Once we received copies of the lien release the taxpayer was all set to list his home for sale. With $40,000 in savings the client was very pleased with the results. He sold his home and ended up moving to Arizona recently. His tax bill is paid and he is another satisfied client!
If you or anyone you know is unsure as to how long the IRS has to collect please give us a call! We can be reached at 720-398-6088.