IRS Compromise Help » irs wage levy

Levied without Notice – Say What?!?

Tripp — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 21:01:10 +0000

I met with a prospective client recently who was having their paycheck garnished by the IRS and didn’t know that it was coming. He was mad to say the least. Upon questioning him a little more, I found out that he had several years of unfiled income tax returns and had moved several times in the past three years.

The IRS is not required to track you down – though they probably could. The law just requires them to give you notice at your last known address and since he had moved several times since he filed his last tax return, the IRS obviously did not have his current address. If you have moved and haven’t updated your address recently you can send in the IRS Change of Address Form to make sure you receive notices from the IRS in the future.

Now, just because the IRS has started with a wage levy doesn’t mean that we have reached the end of the road. There are ways to get the wage levy reduced or stopped all-together. That’s for another post.

Worried About IRS Wage Levy after Setting up an Installment Agreement

Worried About IRS Wage Levy after Setting up an Installment Agreement

Tripp — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 20:10:52 +0000

QUESTION:

I set up an installment agreement a couple of weeks ago to pay off my tax liability. I understand that it is going to take a while before my taxes are paid in full, but I thought once I set up the installment agreement, the IRS cannot come and try to levy my wages. I just received an “Urgent” notice stating the IRS is going to levy my wages or bank accounts. HELP!

ANSWER:

You are correct. Once you have an installment agreement set up, as long as it is valid, the IRS cannot levy your wages. What I believe is going on in your case is that the IRS “machine” simply has not caught up with your installment agreement yet. You hear this a lot about organizations as large as the IRS – “the right hand doesn’t know what the left hand is doing.” I think that is the case here. You have an installment agreement, but the computers that issues the levy notices and other collection notices do not seem to catch up for a few weeks.

You should feel at ease knowing that as long as you are making your payments on time and you are current the IRS cannot levy your wages. I would recommend that you send a letter back to the IRS office that sent you the collection notice and let them know you have already set up an installment agreement. Remember to always send correspondence to the IRS by Certified Mail, Return Receipt Requested. You should enclose a copy of the letter you received from the IRS confirming your installment agreement as proof. You can also call the 800 number on the notice and speak with someone at the IRS.

3 Tips for Avoiding an IRS Wage Garnishment

Tripp — Mon, 12 Oct 2009 17:26:59 +0000

When you owe the IRS money for past taxes, you are probably living in the fear that they are just a few steps behind you and sooner or later they are going to catch up to you and begin garnishing your wages at work. Then, your secret is out. Now everyone, at least it feels like it, knows you owe money to the IRS. On top of that embarrasment, you have to figure out how you are going to survive when you are only receiving a small fraction of the income you are used to receiving.

Since the number one goal is to avoid an IRS levy, here are five tips to help you avoid an IRS wage levy when you owe the IRS money for unpaid taxes.

Tip 1: Keep in touch with the IRS

Now, this isn’t a guarantee that the IRS is not going to garnish you eventually, but if they are sending you letters and calling you at home and you are doing nothing but ignoring them, you better believe they are going to lose patience fast and begin collection procedures much faster than they would if they knew you knew you owed them and you were working towards a resolution.

I don’t know how many times I have met with people who owe the IRS who have just been running from the IRS and they can’t seem to understand why the IRS won’t cut them any slack.

Tip 2: Get some advice from a tax problem resolution professional.

While the IRS tells you that they will work with you and that you do not need to have an attorney representing you, that is not the case. Think of it like this…it is similar to the situation where someone has been arrested for a crime and they are being interrogated. Without an attorney present you could be saying something incriminating that otherwise you would not have had to answer.

The tax problem resolution professional will help you to know your rights and assist you in finding the nuances of your case that will help you. There are also “tricks of the trade” that they can employ to prevent levies and wage garnishments from occuring (especially in the immediate future) that you may not know of.

Tip 3: Organize your financial documents

Most people that owe the IRS a lot of money do so, at least partly, because they are disorganized and cannot put their finger on the documents they need quickly enough to satisfy the IRS or to meet deadlines. One of the first steps you should take as you decide to resolve your IRS problems and to prevent a wage garnishment or levy from the IRS is to get your finances organized. Begin keeping copies of all of your monthly bills. Make sure you keep your bank statements and balance your check book each month. The more knowledge you have about your own personal situation, the easier it will be to convince the IRS that you should not be levied and some other relief should be granted for you.