Well, it's been a challenging time lately due to recent events, the IRS gave us extensions and some leniency the past couple of years. Well, no more. Take it from us here at Travis Watkins Tax, the IRS is back and they're back with a vengeance. Well, there's good news. The IRS's fresh start initiative is still around and guess what? It's operating much better than we even expected. Lots of our clients are paying less sometimes substantially less than they owe with the help of the initiative and Travis Watkins tax. It truly is a once in a lifetime chance to wipe the slate clean and get back into the tax system. Do you want some help with your taxes right now? Don't wait around any longer. There's a window here that may soon close where the IRS sees enough economic recovery, generally, to cut back on these historic deals and you don't want to miss out on that. Call us here at (866) 817-0090 and be sure to mention the fresh start initiative. So we know to give you first priority in getting you handled immediately.

IRS problems are scary, but they don't have to be. Travis Watkins has been helping troubled taxpayers with customized plans to negotiate with the IRS and stop immediate threats to their livelihood so they can get a good night's sleep again since 1999.

There's a bunch of activity going on right now at IRS collection central. And I know this because we have gotten weird groupings, I guess, of letters over the past month There was a time there where the IRS was closed and all the mail that was sitting there ready to go out the door at the IRS, ended up just sitting there for about three months or more. And they unleashed all these IRS notices and hearing deadlines, things like that. We were swimming in mail and notices from the IRS there for a while, and it appears that we are doing so once again, last week, the IRS just unleashed millions of letter notices with various deadlines in them to our office for no real apparent reason, other than we can assume that they are back with a vengeance, and they are firing on all cylinders here. They had quite a few of these LT11 and CP90 and 1058. So we got tons of questions from our clients. What is this letter? What are we supposed to be doing what's happening? So on and so forth because, they got these things before we get them by a couple of days. The IRS sends notice first to the taxpayer, even if you have a power of attorney on file that form 2848, that we've talked about over and over. And it takes us a couple of days before they, the IRS, will send these to the representative on file and that that's real convenient because, they're banking on people getting these Letters and having big questions about and hopefully acting on them. It's also a little bit of a sneak move by the IRS to light the grenades and throw before they have a chance to figure out what they're doing.

Let's talk about what LT 11 is. And there are some kissing cousins to LT 11 at the IRS notice center that do very much the same thing. So let's talk first of all, about, these LT 11 letters. These used to be the old letter, 1058, and they do still send out letter 1058. This is some type of bureaucratic cobbling over time to where they send out the same types of notices with different letter numbers or notice numbers on them. Somebody had the bright idea or came along and, after 1058, was already a thing at the IRS and decided to make things real confusing. LT 11 is the same thing as letter 1058. It is the final notice of intent to levy. And just like, it sounds, it is your final notice before they start active collection activity. In other words, levies, or garnishments, as you might call them under state law, reaching into your bank account or, and, or your paycheck, and involuntarily extracting money that you owe the IRS. So as you can tell LT 11 is a very important notice. One that is not to be ignored. There is good news on these. You have 30 days to request a hearing. In other words, due process on your LT 11 before they start the levying process. Here's, what's kind of interesting about this. If you go to the IRS website, irs.gov and look up LT 11, it's essentially the same verbiage that they put on the letter itself. It says we haven't received your payment for overdue taxes. We intend to seize your property or rights to property. You must contact us immediately. They may be in the process of putting a lien on property. And that is more on the side of passive. I would say collection activity. In other words, they just file one of these and when you go to sell your house, if you have equity in it, then they stand there at the closing table with their hand out, ready to get paid.

That can cause major problems as well. This is the first big letter right before they start those types of activities. Okay. Back to the letter itself, they say here's what you need to do. You need to pay your unpaid balance. When you pay your balance in full, they will stop adding interest in applicable penalties. You can quickly and easily pay your balance online. If you owe less 50,000, you may be able to set up an installment agreement using the online payment agreement tool. If you're already paid in full or think you've got a credit reach out to us and tell us. The letter gives you a few numbers to call and then there's this interesting part they say in bold, you may want to request an appeal to the proposed levy action by following the instructions on the letter, see collection due process, CDP FAQ page, for more information, they don't tell you on here, how long you've got to do that. I'm telling you it's 30 days to do that, or you lose it forever. That's your one and only shot at stopping collection activity because the IRS doesn't have to go to court like any other creditor would obtain a judgment and then ask the court essentially to haul you in or haul you in to ask you questions about where the money is, or just go straight to a garnishment. The IRS has that ability without those technical safeguards of a court due process proceeding. Here's what you're going to get. You're going to get a telephonic hearing if you make this request. It'll probably be right now; these are running like 90 to 120 days. Plus, from the time that you file your request for one of these hearings, so a long time we'll go by there, but it's very important that you make that request.

Otherwise, they can just go straight to trying to find the money, by these means. Let me also talk about a CP 90. This is also a very similar type of letter from the IRS. It is also a final notice of intent to levy or start active collection proceedings against you. You may receive any one of these, and there's not a whole lot of rhyme or reason, that I've figured out, as to which one you might get that being LT 11 CP 90, or letter 1058, just know that they do virtually the same thing. And here's another part of this equation, that is somewhat confusing. You are going to receive along the way mail that looks very similar to all these letters or notices. We call them the 500 series:  CP 5 0 1, CP 5 0 2, CP 5 0 3, and CP 5 0 4. They all look scary. They all say, we're going to do something bad. We're going to seize your property. We can levy you, but they don't have that magical final notice language in those letters. So, after receiving one or two or three of these, you may say, “oh, well they didn't do anything.” “So therefore, I can ignore this one too.” Don't ignore CP 90, LT 11 letter, or 1058. Hey, while it's fresh on your mind, if you need some help with a tax problem, or you're ready to start getting back on track with your company's financial future, through our comprehensive bookkeeping services, there's a simple form on that site to fill out and someone will call you right back with information on how we can help you. The call's free, and you might just end up getting a good night's sleep again tonight, again, call us at (866) 817-0090.

A lot of people ask is, well, how do I know? You know, this is the actual final notice and the real kicker here. If you have any question about whether the letter itself has “real teeth” to it or not, is they will enclose in a final notice of intent to levy a form 1 2 1 5 3. And what that is, that a request for a collection due process hearing. So that's the form that you fill out to request a collection due process, hearing your only chance at new process. It's a fairly straightforward one page form. They want to know who you are, what tax periods are at issue. It's best to include all tax periods that are at issue, whether that those periods that are in question on the final notice have been included or not. You need to include everything that you know is out there, all tax periods. Then assign an appeals officer to this, the two orders of business that happen at those things. First, do you owe the money, or do you have some defense to, I don't owe this money, especially, with what we answer 95% of the time is, yes, I do owe the money, or I don't have any defense to what you're claiming. IRS and you move on to issue number two, which is, there a collection alternative, something other than levy that would get the problem solved. Something to protect both the government's interest and the taxpayer's interest. And what I mean, there is all the toolbox of things that we have in the way of relief at the IRS, Offers and Compromise, various types of installment agreements, penalty abatement, all those remedies can be discussed in the first instance, really with the appeals officer.

It's a very valuable hearing, one that you don't want to miss. So again, if you see a 1 2 1 5 3 form in any of these letters that all look virtually the same, then you know, that that is your one and only shot at due process, especially if you know that you owe the money. Have a licensed tax professional file the 1 2 1 5 3 for you within those 30 days, so that there will be a collection hold on that period. We can start looking at those collection alternatives and what's going to be the best option there at the collection due process hearing to go for. If you have questions on any of these things, or if you'd like for us to read your mail and the scary notices for you, give us a call (866) 817-0090.

There is a form below where you can talk to one of our tax experts about giving you some help with these notices, protecting your due process rights, and getting you back into the tax system with the least amount of emotional distress as possible. Well, there's good news. The IRS's fresh start initiative is still around, and guess what? It's operating much better than we even expected. Lots of our clients are paying less sometimes substantially less than they owe with the help of the initiative and Travis Watkins Tax. It truly is a once in a lifetime chance to wipe the slate clean and get back into the tax system. Do you want some help with your taxes right now? I want you to call (866) 817-0090 and set up a time to chat with us about your tax problems and getting them fixed today. Don't wait around any longer. There's a window here that may soon close where the IRS sees enough economic recovery, generally, to cut back on these historic deals. And you don't want to miss out on that. Call us here at (866) 817-0090.