"If you are reading this because an envelope from the Internal Revenue Service is sitting on your counter, open it. Open it now, before you read another page."
It is a map: how federal tax collection actually works, which options exist, who qualifies for them, and how to tell a real solution from a sales pitch. It is not legal advice, and it is not a book about avoiding taxes.
Read A Note Before You StartThe Letter That Changes Everything
Before You Agree You Owe the Money
The Legal Ways Out
When the IRS Turns Up the Pressure
- 14Federal tax lien: What it means for your property
- 15IRS wage levy or bank levy: What to do after funds are taken
- 16IRS CDP hearing: Protect your collection appeal rights
- 17Business tax debt: Payroll taxes and personal liability
- 18How to choose a tax professional for IRS debt
- --Interlude: The Other Collector
Reclaiming Your Financial Future
Fictional composites, built to illustrate how the same law produces different results for different facts. Their numbers are made up. The procedures they go through are real.
Contractor owing about $86,000 after years of skipped estimated payments
Divorced parent facing a $42,000 balance from joint returns
Owes about $118,000, little income, owns his home outright
Owes about $19,000 after a run of bad luck
Worksheets
View all- Tool 1: IRS Notice Decoder
- Tool 2: Tax Debt Inventory
- Tool 3: Resolution Decision Tree
- Tool 4: Ability-to-Pay Worksheet
- Tool 5: Offer in Compromise Reality Check
- Tool 6: Collection Deadline Tracker
- Tool 7: Penalty Relief Evidence Checklist
- Tool 8: Collection Emergency Checklist
- Tool 9: Small-Business Payroll Tax Warning Sheet
- Tool 10: Professional Selection Questionnaire
- Tool 11: IRS Communication Log
- Tool 12: The Next 12 Months
Letters
View all- E-1. Request for penalty abatement under First Time Abate
- E-2. Request for penalty abatement for reasonable cause
- E-3. Request for release of levy on economic hardship grounds
- E-4. Cover letter for returns filed to replace substitute-for-return assessments
- E-5. Request for audit reconsideration of a CP2000 or examination assessment
- E-6. Designation of payment to the trust fund portion of employment tax
- E-7. Confirmation of a telephone agreement
- E-8. Explanation to attach to Form 12153 (Collection Due Process hearing request)
- E-9. Narrative for an effective tax administration offer
- E-10. Request for lien withdrawal
- E-11. Request for Taxpayer Advocate assistance (narrative for Form 911)
- E-12. Revocation of a power of attorney
Scripts
View allReference
View all- A Note Before You Start
- Start Here: One Page for the Reader Who Cannot Read a Whole Book Tonight
- Interlude: The Other Collector
- Appendix B: Glossary
- Appendix D: Source Notes
- Appendix G: How Long Things Take
- IRS account transcripts: How to get one and read the codes
- IRS scams and fake letters: How to verify a notice
- Tax-relief companies: What to check before paying
- Tax identity theft: Recover your IRS account and protect future returns
- Wages you did not earn: Employment identity theft and IRS/SSA corrections
- Business tax identity theft: Protect your EIN and use Form 14039-B
- IRS audit basics: Mail, field audits, Letter 566 and appeals
- Self-employed and gig taxes: Estimates and 1099-K mismatches
- Free IRS tax help: Clinics and the Taxpayer Advocate Service
- State tax debt: Official collection resources for every state