• BPC Tax
• Levies & Liens
• Research
• Tax Returns
• Reducing Tax
• Businesses
• Amnesty
• Defense
• State
• Tax & Bkkp
• Before you Hire

Establishing Tax-Filing Compliance

After a tax problem is properly researched and fully understood, the next step is to establish full filing compliance. This must be done before the taxing authorities will consider most forms of relief. Our firm handles all types of tax-filing needs. Our professionals routinely prepare all types of returns for individuals, partnerships, s-corporations, c-corporations and limited liability companies (LLCs). All of our clients' needed income, payroll and sales tax work (and countless others) can be prepared in-house by our professional staff.

• Old Years Returns for Long-Term Non-Filers

In addition to current-year returns, all our tax preparation services are available for old years and even decades at a time. It is common for some irregular event in a taxpayer's past to cause a period of non-filing (family death, divorce, medical issues, etc.). Other times, taxpayers that cannot afford to pay their taxes stop filing on purpose to avoid collections enforcement. No matter the reason for the delinquent filings, it is almost always in the best interest of the party involved to immediately get the delinquent tax returns prepared.

Among the biggest concerns to taxpayers that fall out of filing compliance is the potential criminal problems relating to failing to file. Relax. The fact is that so long as a person takes the initiative to get any delinquent tax returns accurately prepared and filed, the chances of a criminal issue existing are pretty much zero. The sooner that a person gets back into full filing compliance under their own will, the less chance that this type of problem will arise.

Intentional non-filing due to a lack of capability to pay is generally illegal and a bad idea. It can delay the taxing authorities from immediate pursuit of a taxpayer for collections, but comes at a stiff price, as a late-filed tax return is typically subjected to very substantial penalties and interest on those penalties. Instead of allowing the debt to be compounded in this manner, one may be better off filing the tax returns, acknowledging the unaffordable tax debt owed and requesting relief under one of the many tax amnesty programs available.

• Reconstructing or Overcoming Missing Data

Many multiple year non-filers have lost their records from prior years or they have been destroyed. We can help. It is fairly common that we must overcome this while helping clients achieve tax-filing compliance. We can help by reconstructing needed records and/or by using the best information available to get the returns filed.

• Correcting Overstated Tax Debts and/or Filing Amended Tax Returns

Correcting Overstated Assessments:
It is not only sloppy preparers that miscalculate tax balances owed. Sadly, amounts calculated by the federal and state taxing authorities are often times overstated.

In cases where a taxpayer doesn't file a tax return, the federal and state governments will sometimes make estimated calculations. These calculations generally do not consider any exemptions, deductions, adjustments, credits or sometimes even tax payments on account that may benefit the taxpayer and so they commonly overstate the true tax, penalty and interest balances owed. Our firm can get these government overstatements down to the proper amounts after preparing and filing your original tax returns for the periods in question.

Amended Tax Returns:
Our firm takes the necessary steps to be sure that your tax returns are as complete and accurate as possible. In addition to carefully reviewing the tax information that you bring to us, we also take several other steps to help you avoid potential problems and to maximize tax savings. Among those common extras are the following:

• Annual income summaries are obtained and referenced (when available) through the taxing authorities so we know what W-2s, 1099s, etc. have been reported under your identification numbers;
• An extensive interview is conducted to be sure that business bookkeeping or expense summaries do not omit valid deductions, such as amounts paid by cash or amounts that can be substantiated with alternative forms of documentation instead of receipts; and
• A careful checklist is followed to confirm that we have asked you all of the reasonable questions about possible exemptions, downward adjustments to income, itemized deductions, non-refundable credits and refundable credits.

Unfortunately, many other tax preparers do not follow these same important steps. We commonly encounter errors made by careless or uninformed preparers and in many instances the opportunity to correct them is still available. When errors are discovered by our firm we generally do the work to get them corrected, so long as the benefit to our client is large enough to make the correction worthwhile and the assessment and/or refund statutes are still open. Generally, a tax return can be amended within three years of its original filing date and a refund can be claimed within two years of the date of an overpayment (certain restrictions do apply to these general criteria).

• Audit Representation, Appeals & Reconsideration

Audit Representation:
A federal or state tax audit typically begins with a letter stating that a return or group of returns have been selected for an examination. Receiving a letter of this nature can be very disheartening, especially if you are not well advised of how your return was prepared or if you suspect that you may not have the documentation needed to support all the amounts reported.

Just because a return is audited doesn't mean that it may not be correct. An income tax return is usually selected for examination because of one of the following:

1. Income items that were reported to the taxing authorities are mistakenly omitted from the tax return filed, thus making the omissions apparent;
2. Certain relationships of some items to others within the same return suggest the likelihood of irregularities (based on a numerically calculated DIF score); or
3. Other information comes to the attention of the taxing authorities that indicates that a return may have substantially incorrect amounts reported.

Sometimes returns that are perfectly prepared will still be selected for audit.

Not only can an audit be a lot of work to handle, but an uninformed taxpayer can do a great disservice to their own case by trying to represent themselves. Self-representation is generally not something that would be recommended for a taxpayer to attempt. Even if you've been absolutely honest and all of your documents are in good order, meeting with the IRS yourself can be intimidating and can lead to additional tax assessments that might possibly have been avoided with proper professional representation.

Fortunately, our firm can manage all aspects of your audit so that you don't even have to meet with the taxing authorities. We can help you reconstruct lost or missing documents and support items using alternative sources of documentation, such as third-party affidavits, etc. when typical records are not available.

In addition to income tax audits, we can also handle your payroll, sales or other business tax audits of practically any kind. Our representatives have dealt with a number of cases wherein good business records have not been maintained, yet we have found alternative ways to get favorable end results.

Examination Appeals:
In the event that disagreements arise on a tax audit, appeal rights generally exist wherein the issues of dispute can be heard by appellate officers. Our firm is accustomed to dealings with these government representatives and can often times find deals for our clients that may not have been available while dealing with the initial auditor or revenue agent. It is somewhat rare that a case cannot be resolved amicably at this level, but in the event that it can't, a US Tax Court Petition can be filed to preserve appeal rights and to request a trial.

Audit Reconsideration:
Sometimes taxpayers learn the hard way and suffer the bad results that can accompany self-representation. If you or your business has been the victim of poor representation or bad organization, it may not be too late to get the audit resolved in your favor, even if it has already concluded once. A program known as audit reconsideration exists wherein cases can be re-opened for corrections, even if legal appeal rights have already expired. This is very common for audits concerning denied dependents and/or denied qualifying children for purposes of earned income credit.

If you have been notified that you will be audited, have an ongoing audit or believe that a previously concluded audit did not ultimately treat you fairly, please contact our office to understand what can be done to resolve your case and/or the existing liabilities.

If you need immediate release of a bank account levy, salary levy, or receivables levy, please contact our office for help.