Taxpayer’s Other Payment Options

We have mentioned other payment options throughout this post. We are going to put them together here.

Determining other payment options for your client takes serious research, compilation of records and information, and then sitting the client down and having a coming to reality meeting with them. This is where we help them decide on some of those option I mentioned earlier:

1. The Fresh Start Initiative – Full Pay Installment Agreement or Partial Pay Installment Agreement
2. Offer in Compromise
3. Letting the CSED run and letting the levy be foreclosed
4. Bankruptcy filing
5. CDP/CAP Hearing requests
6. If available, Judicial review of the case
7. Other tax matters not in evidence (ie. state taxes, sales taxes, payroll taxes, etc)

When helping the client decide on alternative actions or payment options, please keep in mind the time lines and statute of limitations we discussed earlier. You must take a big picture approach to this topic.

Obviously the IRS’s first choice in dealing with collections is to collect the assessed liability. Our job as representatives is threefold:

1. Protect the clients rights
2. Determine the best course of action for the client within legal guidelines
3. Assist the client in pursuing that course of action by representing him in front of the taxing authority to the best of our ability

Once we have taken on a client and done everything we need to do to protect their rights, including the things we have talked about today, we need to help our client determine his best course of action to get his situation cleared up.

Clients come to us with all sorts of expectations. From wanting us to magically make it all go away to wanting us to do whatever we can to keep them from losing everything including their freedom.

Once we have determined where the client is in the government mill, we can help them decide what to do to get things fixed. This is not always, actually very seldom, going to be a matter of “poof” and it’s all fixed.

Once you and the client agree on a course of action or alternative payment action you can work to get the liens and levies released or withdrawn so that the taxpayer can get back on with his life.