Settling Your Debt with the IRS: How to Avoid the Worst

Settling Your Debt with the IRS

Owing unpaid tax to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) can have very serious repercussions unless you take appropriate steps to prevent them. The good news is, with a bit of professional advice, you can not only avoid the worst, but it is even possible to reduce the total due tax amount. Read on to know exactly what your options are to settle an IRS debt in the best way possible.

Make Sure You Really Do have an IRS Debt First

By now, most of us already know about the IRS scams, but given that these criminal organizations are mostly based overseas, there is very little that even the authorities can do about them. However, the good news is that if you get a call from the IRS, you can be 100% sure that it’s a fraudulent call by default!

This is true because the Internal Revenue Service of the United States doesn’t contact US citizens for any reason whatsoever, via phone, email or social media. Archaic as it may be, the IRS will only contact someone if they must, via traditional offline mail. For further clarification, you can even contact the IRS directly from their official website.

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Seek Professional Advice

After you have confirmed the fact that you were indeed contacted by the IRS and you do actually owe them money, the next step would be to seek professional advice.

Tax Group Center is a dedicated IRS debt consultancy and attorney service that is geared towards helping people reduce their total debt to the tax department, by reducing interests and penalty charges on the original debt. They can also prevent a bank levy or a wage garnishment by the IRS and have been successfully doing so for over 30 years.

Understand the Various Aspects of Tax Relief

Consultancies primarily utilize the tax relief clauses embedded within US Tax Laws to shrink IRS debts down significantly. Although only tax attorneys, accountants, and other professionals working in the sector can actually help you identify the right one, as well as guide you towards consequent steps, having an introductory knowledge about tax relief is definitely going to be helpful.

  • Innocent Spouse Doctrine – The wife/husband of the original individual in debt may not be held liable for the same
  • Currently Non-Collectible (CNC) – Indebted individual earns a gross monthly income lower than the National Standard for allowable expenses
  • Installment Agreement (IA) – The due amount is paid off in affordable installments
  • Collection Statute Expiration Date (CSED) – Tax debt past the ten-year mark expires and cannot be collected anymore
  • Penalty Abatement – Under special circumstances, certain penalties and interests can be abated
  • Offer in Compromise (OIC) – Under specific circumstances, the due tax amount can also be reduced

If you really owe tax money to the Internal Revenue Service, you will have to pay and there’s no going around that. At the same time, you do not necessarily have to face any harassment from the IRS, be it direct or indirect.

You also have a legal right to fight against measures taken by them, as well as against the penalties or garnishments, as initiated by the IRS. The idea is to, therefore, minimize the damage as best as possible, and pay the due amount in a way which is both legally acceptable to the IRS and financially practical for you.

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