One way not to pay tax penalties or interest is to file your taxes properly and by the due date. This sage advice comes from my years of being an Atlanta CPA and tax attorney – offering IRS representation for people who want to prevent tax problems in the first place. However, we live in an imperfect world and often circumstances arise that, for an individual taxpayer or business, can make adhering to our tax obligations nearly impossible to do.

Here at Gartzman Law Firm, we see taxpayers, especially in these financially turbulent times, who are experiencing financial troubles like never before and have lapsed in paying their taxes. The reasons are varied and often include one of the following scenarios: extended unemployment, divorce, death, serious illness of loved one, or business tax issues. Filing late or paying taxes late are the most common reasons people find themselves paying penalties and interest but as Georgia tax help lawyers, we help these clients understand that the longer their tax burden goes on unresolved, so too the penalties and interest increase.

According to IRS regulations, if a return is not filed by the due date (including extensions), a failure-to-file penalty may be added to the amount owed, 5 percent for each month or part of a month that a return is late (up to 5 months). Failure to pay penalties accrues at ½% or 1% per month. This can be a large sum for individuals or businesses already facing significant tax problems.

Penalty Abatement
If a troubled taxpayer is able to prove reasonable cause, they are encouraged to file a Request for Penalty Abatement with the IRS. Should their case be accepted, they could see a reduction and sometimes elimination of a large portion of the penalties due. However, the IRS does not abate penalties willingly. Since it is their job to collect all taxes due, they have made Penalty Abatement difficult to obtain and highly scrutinized; not always favorable to an individual taxpayer facing the IRS alone.

This means the burden of proof is placed directly on the taxpayer to prove worthiness for Penalty Abatement for back taxes. It is highly recommended to hire a reputable Atlanta Tax Attorney firm who will approach the IRS directly on your behalf. Having a tax law expert on your side, demonstrates to the IRS your willingness to resolve this matter and could better your chances of a penalty reduction related to your case.

To better prepare for penalty abatement, a reputable tax attorney generally requests the following from clients with significant tax problems:

1. Act quickly! – It is important that any tax problems get resolved quickly because the longer they continue into the future, the harder it will be to make a convincing argument for penalty abatement.
2. Get all paperwork and records in working order regarding this case. Gathering these documents together will go a long way to providing back up information and a persuasive case.

Get Help to Solve Your Tax problems
After collecting all the information necessary, your Georgia tax lawyer will be in a better position to explain the extenuating circumstances surrounding your case and negotiate directly with the IRS for you. By hiring a tax attorney and CPA in Atlanta, Georgia as your representation, you are placing them in the driver’s seat as your advocate who can help you get back on your financial feet again.

For my clients in Atlanta, tax relief from a tax attorney is the last hope for getting out of an unfortunate situation with IRS tax debt. You can avoid IRS trouble by learning from these common mistakes that lead to owing back taxes.

Think of the IRS as your prickly Aunt Mildred who is always correcting your grammar and criticizing your fashion choices. It may feel like they are just waiting for you to slip up, so they can swoop in and disrupt your life with an IRS tax audit. Atlanta tax attorneys agree that the best defense is not to give them any ammunition in the first place. There are some cut-and-dried tax help steps you can take to make sure you stay in the IRS’s good graces. (You’re on your own with Aunt Mildred.)

Meet the deadline. If you can’t get all your paperwork together by April 15th, don’t hide under a rock and assume the nice federal agents won’t be able to find you. Buy yourself some time by going online and submitting Form 4868, Application for Automatic Extension of Time to File U.S. Individual Income Tax Return by the regular deadline. If you can’t do it, ask for tax help from an Atlanta tax attorney or CPA.

Pay on time, even if only in part. Even if you filed an extension, you still have to pay what you think you owe. If you can’t make the complete payment on April 15th, pay as much as you can. The IRS will still eventually dun you for fees and interest (an Atlanta tax lawyer can help you get IRS tax help), but they won’t take as dim a view as they would if you tried to get away payment-free.

File a return. If you don’t, Atlanta tax lawyers will tell you that the IRS will do it for you, and it will reflect the government’s best interests, not yours. You can always file an amended return down the line.

Keep copies of everything. The IRS manages the taxes of hundreds of millions of people and companies, the law of averages says that some things are going to slip between the cracks. Make sure it’s not you by keeping copies of all pertinent paperwork. If the IRS knocks on your door with a smile, you want your Atlanta tax attorney to be able to help on your behalf.

Double-check your math. According to the Treasury Department, self-filers have an error rate as high as 61 percent. Even tax preparation software is better than doing it on your own. There is less room to make mistakes and it will prompt you to ensure you have pursued every avenue to deductions. Better yet, have your Atlanta CPA or tax attorney help prepare income tax returns for you.

Don’t cheat. Did you know that the IRS is already in possession of your W-2 and other information? If they find discrepancies, you’ll have some explaining to do, and they’ll be less likely to give you IRS tax relief. Then you will really need an Atlanta tax lawyer.

If you needed surgery, would you attempt to do it yourself? An IRS tax audit is just as critical for your tax, financial and business wellbeing, so don’t go it alone.

Ask anyone who has tried to “DIY” the audit process unsuccessfully: The IRS has been far more aggressive in tax audits and collection efforts in recent years. Taxpayers are not guaranteed flexibility from the IRS. Learn from my Atlanta tax relief clients who have found tax help with expert tax attorney representation, even at the eleventh hour with an IRS audit.

It’s never too late to hire an Atlanta tax attorney

If you receive notice from the IRS that you’re being audited, representing yourself can be dangerously inefficient and close doors on key opportunities that your tax attorney will understand from the start.

A textbook example is the taxpayer who either ignored the IRS audit notice or dealt with the IRS auditor alone. Take advice from my Atlanta tax relief clients who tried an IRS audit alone and wish they hadn’t.

IRS audit lessons you don’t want to learn the hard way:

• They missed the opportunity for an administrative appeal and are left with hard choices, like tax court or IRS tax debt with no way out.
• The IRS auditor found their tax and financial records were incomplete or too disorganized.
• The process was confusing because they didn’t speak the tax lingo of the IRS auditor.
• Staggering interest and penalties were accumulating the entire time they ignored or delayed the tax audit.
• They don’t know of or understand their legal and financial options for surviving an IRS audit or the tax audit follow-up process.
• They get stung with a large assessment for several years of previous tax returns, unfiled taxes, or back taxes – not just the year for which they were being audited.

If you find yourself at the brink of an IRS audit failure, a tax attorney can intervene and provide tax help in many critical ways. As your tax attorney, my job is to interface with IRS personnel on your behalf.

Last minute tax representation is always better than none. However, you have a significantly better chance to successfully navigate an IRS audit if you get a tax attorney on your side the minute you learn you’re being audited.

Jeffrey S. Gartzman, Atlanta Tax Attorney and CPA, has been providing Atlanta tax relief for over 28 years. If you are facing an IRS audit, contact Gartzman Tax Law to get a tax attorney on your side immediately. Call the Gartzman Law Firm today at (770) 939-7710.

Small business owners are targets for a record year of increasing IRS tax audits. If you are an Atlanta small business owner, you probably have an accountant and an attorney on speed dial. But if you don’t have an Atlanta tax attorney who specializes in business taxes, you could get eaten alive by the IRS.

Are you filing as the right business entity?

I see it happen every year: a small business owner with LLC status files business taxes as an S-corporation. To file as an S-corporation, a business owner must first elect to be taxed as an S-corporation, and some accountants and attorneys can overlook this tax law detail. If you don’t file this election, you will inadvertently set yourself up for IRS tax problems like back taxes. As a last attempt at tax relief, your tax attorney might work with the IRS to recognize S-corporation status retroactively.

Whether you are facing IRS collection efforts of business back taxes, or you’re questioning whether you’ve filed income taxes correctly, an experienced tax attorney and CPA can help you by:

• Filing or reviewing your state and IRS income taxes correctly
• Interfacing with the IRS collection agents, auditors, or IRS attorneys so you don’t have to
• Taking control of an IRS collection effort or IRS tax audit and guiding you through the process efficiently
• Explaining the options and opportunities you have for business tax relief – that you might not be aware of or capable of pursuing without tax representation

Small business owners need tax law specialists

Your small business is your entire financial foundation. Dealing with back taxes, IRS collection efforts, or an IRS audit without a tax attorney may be like trying to ride out a hurricane without shelter. Learn more about what to expect during an IRS tax audit in my post on How to Survive an IRS Tax Audit.

Accountants are specialists who work hard to bring order to your finances and present your business bottom line. But if your accountant is your only source of tax information, hire a tax attorney for tax law expertise and to negotiate on your behalf with the IRS. It’s your job to focus on your business, and a tax attorney and CPA will handle business tax returns or IRS audits the right way to minimize impact to your operations.

An Atlanta tax attorney can provide tax help to small business owners to meet IRS deadlines, make sure you don’t miss opportunities for a tax appeal, and to try to waive penalties or decrease the amount of penalties and interest that could break the bank.

With combined expertise as an Atlanta tax attorney and CPA, Jeffrey S. Gartzman offers Atlanta small business clients the legal counsel and sound financial advice they need to survive IRS tax problems. If you need small business tax help, contact the Gartzman Law Firm today at (770) 939-7710.

Most people don’t realize that taxpayers who owe just $5,000 in IRS back taxes are automatically subject to an IRS lien filed at your local county courthouse, unless you get a Georgia tax attorney to deal with your tax debt before the IRS does.

I recently read an article on MSNBC in which IRS watchdog and National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson told Congress, “By filing a lien against a taxpayer with no money and no assets, the IRS often collects nothing, yet it inflicts long-term harm on the taxpayer by making it harder for him to get back on his feet when he does get a job.”

What is an IRS lien?

If you owe IRS back taxes, the federal government can put a lien on your personal or business property to secure liability – and seize your property. IRS liens are on the rise and at their highest rate since the mid-1990’s. Last fiscal year the IRS filed 1.1 million liens on people with unpaid back taxes.

Seek local Atlanta tax relief from an IRS lien with an Atlanta tax attorney

In response to Olson’s report, the IRS said taxpayers are given numerous opportunities to pay their IRS tax debt or file for IRS payment plans. Without the legal counsel of a tax attorney, many people may not understand how to find qualified Atlanta tax resolution help or take advantage of tax relief to prevent a lien.

An IRS installment agreement, also called a payment plan, is one tax relief option an Atlanta tax attorney will explore with you. Taxpayers can face staggering interest on top of the tax debt, and steep IRS penalty fees. Deal with delinquent tax returns or back taxes with a tax attorney on your side for the best possible outcome to a tax debt situation. Your tax attorney will communicate directly with the IRS and make sure you’re not missing deadlines to apply for an extension or other opportunities to dampen the threat of an IRS lien.

If you are facing an IRS lien, an experienced tax attorney is your best bet to protect your rights as a taxpayer, and to negotiate with the IRS on your behalf. Timing and efficient action is critical to surviving an IRS lien or collection of back taxes. Talk to an Atlanta tax attorney today.

Jeffrey S. Gartzman has 28 years of experience as a CPA and Atlanta tax attorney. He has helped countless taxpayers facing IRS liens and dealing with IRS back taxes collection tactics. An IRS lien situation is time-critical, so if you owe back taxes contact the Gartzman Law Firm today at (770) 939-7710 or online at Gartzman Tax Law.

If you owe IRS back taxes from unfiled income taxes, sooner or later the IRS will take action to collect. In many cases this means additional tax debt from penalties and interest – on top of IRS liens and levies that can bring your life or your business to a halt. When you work with an Atlanta tax attorney or CPA to get tax relief, your tax lawyer will intervene with the IRS and work to reasonably settle IRS back taxes for you.

“Times were tough, so I didn’t pay my taxes.”

It’s a story I hear frequently these days: Maybe you were making good money or staying in the black with self-employment income before the economy went downhill – along with your job or small business income. You tried to stay afloat by not filing federal income taxes, and now you owe back taxes.

During this recent Recession the IRS significantly increased their efforts to enforce tax collection. Avoiding paying federal income taxes during tough economic times will only result in a staggering IRS tax debt from back taxes.

I provided IRS tax relief services to a client who had accumulated tax debt during the rough economy. With tax help from the Gartzman Law Firm, my client was able to settle almost $250,000 in back taxes for about $20,000 by pursuing an Offer in Compromise with the IRS.

Here’s how your Atlanta tax attorney can help you pursue an Offer in Compromise:

1. Meet with a tax attorney and complete a financial worksheet to paint a complete scenario of your IRS tax problems and owed back taxes.

2. Give your tax attorney Power of Attorney so they can communicate with the IRS on your behalf about your tax debt and specific details in your tax record: unfiled returns, amount the IRS claims you owe, etcetera.

3. Your tax attorney will review your case and present viable financial and legal options to present an Offer in Compromise to the IRS.

4. Work with your tax attorney to complete the filing for an Offer in Compromise. As a tax attorney, I understand what the IRS will be taking into consideration regarding your financial status: income, expenses, assets, liabilities, and personal issues like age, employment, medical, and family status.

5. Submit the Offer in Compromise. On average, the process takes three to four months.

6. You will receive a letter from the IRS about the acceptance status of your Offer in Compromise, and what payment is owed.

During this process your Atlanta tax attorney will intervene on your behalf with the IRS – meaning you’ll talk with your lawyer, not get bounced around to different people at the IRS. Your tax attorney may meet with an IRS Revenue Officer, automated collection service (ACS) personnel, Offer in Compromise examiners, or sometimes an Appeals Officer to resolve your tax problems.

Back taxes and IRS tax problems preventing you from economic recovery? Settle your back taxes today with the experienced legal counsel and financial guidance of Jeffrey S. Gartzman, Atlanta tax attorney and CPA by calling (770) 939-7710, or contact us online.