Tax Liens

As tax problems go, one of the worst things the IRS can do is attach tax liens to your property. They can always garnish your wages and levy your bank accounts, but tax liens are a particularly paralyzing weapon in the IRS arsenal.

Many taxpayers with lingering issues don’t realize just how much trouble they are in until it is too late. They see notice after notice come through with ever-increasing amounts of money owed and escalated warnings. The problem is that reading an IRS notice is about as easy to the average taxpayer as reading tea leaves.

Final IRS Notices

If you receive a Final Notice of Intent to Levy and Notice of Your Right to a Hearing (CP 90) or a Final Notice before Levy on Social Security Benefits (CP 91), the IRS is about to take your money.

While this is a 30-day notice, you do not have 30 days to act. If you receive one of these final IRS notices, you need to call us immediately. Even if you call today and we get everything in place in the next week, it’s a possibility that the IRS systems will not update quickly enough to stop the tax liens, levies, and garnishments that are scheduled to take place 30 days from the day the final IRS notice was sent.

If you are receiving any IRS collection notices, do not wait to take action, the longer you wait the more expensive the solution becomes. If you do have a Final Notice of Intent it is not too late, but you must act today to preserve your rights. Act immediately and call TaxMasters now!

Consequences of Tax Liens

Tax liens carry many consequences, short-term and long-term. As soon as the IRS files a tax lien, all property registered in your name is flagged. You generally cannot refinance or sell a piece of property, even to pay off your tax debt, without going through lien subordination or coming to some sort of agreement with the IRS beforehand.

In addition to freezing your ability to sell property, a tax lien puts a big red flag on your credit report. Most finance companies will not lend to you if you have a tax lien. And those that will lend to you in this circumstance typically charge almost inconceivable amounts of interest.

The long-term effects of the IRS filing a tax lien tend not to be discussed much, but they are very real. First, there’s the cost it will take you to get back into compliance with the IRS. Cost of services at any reputable IRS tax relief firm goes up as soon as you have a tax lien in place. The reason is that it takes a great deal more work to bring a taxpayer back from the bottom of the IRS tax lien cliff than to stop them from falling off in the first place. While you are working to regain compliance, the tax debt grows because of penalties and interest. So you wind up spending your resources and time on efforts to regain compliance instead of actually paying off the debt. Even after you have regained compliance fully and have paid your tax debt in full, settled that debt, or worked out a payment plan with the IRS, your credit remains in shambles. In many ways a tax lien does more damage to your credit long-term than does bankruptcy. So everything you finance over the decade following the enforcement of a tax lien costs more due to high interest rates.

All the additional costs that come with tax liens amount to an increased tax on the non-compliant. The current IRS and financial systems are designed not only to punish you for your tax lien now, but to continue to punish you for at least the next ten years.

Avoiding Tax Liens

Avoiding tax liens should be your highest priority if you currently have a tax problem. The way to do that is to call us today and get started right away on fixing your tax problem before it leads to a tax lien. Do not wait until you receive a final IRS notice. We can still help you even if you already have a tax lien, but the odds of stopping the IRS from filing a tax lien plummets exponentially with each day you wait to call.

Contact us or call us today at (866) 694-4018.

Until you need us,

Patrick Cox TaxMasters

Website Upgrade at TaxMasters

We’re very excited to roll out our new and improved TaxMasters website this week. The new site will give TaxMasters clients and potential customers more information about the IRS collections process and about tax problems in general. We kept the information on the site that has been most useful to our clients over the years and then added more detail, more resources, and more raw information about the IRS and how the agency collects revenue.

After being in the IRS tax representation and tax resolution business for going on a decade now, we have learned that taxpayers in need of representation make better clients if they know more about what stage of collections they are facing. To that end, we have developed an entirely new section of the website dedicated to defining and discussing IRS problems in detail. We created an IRS Collections Process Chart to help you identify the stage of the collections process you are in and to help you understand what to expect next. This can be vital in not allowing too much time to go by before acting to solve your tax problem. TaxMasters can solve just about any tax problem, but it is so much cheaper and more straightforward to get through the tax resolution process if you engage us sooner rather than later.

We have also added definitions of individual filer notices and business filer notices to help taxpayers understand what the IRS is saying to you when they send you something in the mail. We describe each notice the IRS currently sends and then make note of the most serious ones with explanations of the implied consequences.

We also added a couple of different tax calendars and some handy tax resolution resources for clients and potential clients alike. So come on by the main site and take a look. We’d be glad to know what you think. Be sure to stop by the Success Stories page and the TaxMasters Reviews page. We still have all the in-depth IRS tax relief information we have had in the past to help you with your decision to move forward with IRS audits, tax settlements, filing past-due tax returns, and stopping wage garnishment.

Until you need us,

Patrick Cox TaxMasters

Economic ‘Crisis’

The glance I took at the headlines this morning was flat out depressing. Small Banks Ailing as Recession Mounts, Hedge Fund is Dissolving as It Faces 2nd Inquiry, Shake-Up at Shell, Quarterly Earnings Fall at Staples… these are just a few. There is some growing optimism out there, but it’s my perception that most people think we are in terrible economic shape. It’s clear that people are scared to spend right now, even though most are still making about what they were this time last year. Of course there’s those who have lost their jobs and we empathize with that situation. But most of us still have a job. So what’s the deal?

Gallery Furniture–What Recession?

There is a business here in Houston named Gallery Furniture run by an incredible retail business mind in Jim McIngvale, better known around town as Mattress Mac. I can’t recall where I saw the reference, but when asked about the impending recession several months back, McIngvalestated plainly that he couldn’t control others, but that he didn’t plan to participate in any recession or downturn. I like that kind of attitude. It happens to be the same attitude we have at Tax Masters.

If You Get Knocked Down, Stand Back Up

Last week the main warehouse for McIngvale’s furniture business burned. This was a 100,000 square foot facility full of furniture, mattresses, and electronics. Gone. We all watched andwaited to see how Mattress Mac would respond. Less than 48 hours after the incident, Gallery Furniture was running a new television ad, thanking people for their support and informing everyone that their store on the west side of Houston was open for business and they were carrying on their Memorial Day sale as planned. If that’s not resilience, I don’t know what is. Our hat’s off to Jim McIngvale and Gallery Furniture for refusing to go down. Jim is known to be a class act here in Houston. I have met him once or twice and wholeheartedly agree with that opinion of him.

It’s my assertion that it will take people like those at Gallery Furniture to get this country back on track. It’s going to take people who refuse to stay on the floor when knocked down.

Proposed Increases in IRS Enforcement Budget, People, and Resources

As the recession, real or perceived, tightens its grip on the common taxpayer in the United States, the IRS is going to more aggressively pursue every dime they think you might owe. As a matter of fact, if you have been following my posts, you’ve already read about Obama’s 800 and about the current administration’s push to quadruple the IRS enforcement budget over the next five years. The message is plain. Pay your taxes and play by the rules or the IRS is coming for you.

Solve Your Tax Problem Now Before It Grows

As I’ve stated before, now is not the time to have a tax problem. Some estimate that 20 percent of U.S. taxpayers have some sort of IRS tax problem. That’s one in five. Look around you. Think about your friends. One in five of them owes the IRS money or is facing an audit. Now is the time to fix these problems, before the IRS has more resources and a larger budget with which to pursue tax evaders. Don’t let simple mistakes become a crime. This is a simple choice. But it’s a choice you must make.

Tax Masters is Strong and Here to Help

As Mattress Mac stated concerning the economy and what it means for Gallery Furniture, we’re not participating in any recession at Tax Masters. We are strong and we are here to help taxpayers all over the country fix the problems they have with the IRS. If you have a tax problem, you really need to get this fixed sooner rather than later. Don’t let your tax debt grow into something you can’t possibly pay off. Those penalties and interest are working against you right now as you read this.

Call Tax Masters today at (866) 694-4018 and put yourself on the road to settling with the IRS right now. You’ve already procrastinated long enough. Tax debt does not go away unless you take the appropriate actions to make it go away. Call us. We can help.

Until you need us,

Patrick Cox Tax Masters