If you find yourself in disagreement with the results of an IRS hearing, an IRS penalty, or conclusions of an audit, you have the right to a formal appeals process. An impartial, independent, equitable appeals hearing is within your rights — if you choose to exercise that right.
Appealing an IRS decision, penalty, or finding is your opportunity to challenge either of those conclusions and appeal for a better one. You will not have many of these opportunities. When preparing an appeal, specific procedures must be followed within specific timelines to avoid forfeiture of this right. Move quickly.
Your first unofficial method to appeal an IRS claim of tax liability is to file a return that replaces their assumptive filing (SFR filing). If you fail to file, the SFR is the substitute filing that the IRS will file on your behalf with their estimates about your financial standing, wealth, and/or incomes for that year. Self-filing a true accounting of your earnings can correct presumptions about the year in question and the taxes you owe. Filing can help you avoid “Audit Reconsideration.”
When you do not pay taxes on the presumed earnings the IRS filed for you, they will begin the process of penalizing you accordingly. The first part of that penalization process happens when you receive a letter from the IRS stating their “Intent to Lien” “Intent to Levy,” or garnishment of your wages. When this happens, you only have a number of days to respond, or, to request a Collections Due Process (CDP) hearing. *See section: Collections Due Process for more explanation.
When you do not pay taxes on the presumed earnings the IRS filed for you, they will begin the process of penalizing you accordingly. The first part of that penalization process happens when you receive a letter from the IRS stating their “Intent to Lien” “Intent to Levy,” or garnishment of your wages. When this happens, you only have a number of days to respond, or, to request a Collections Due Process (CDP) hearing. *See section: Collections Due Process for more explanation.
If you’ve suffered a negative outcome at the Collections Due Process stage, the IRS Office of Appeals exists as a last stop before the finality of Tax Court. Also, many rejected “offers in compromise” end up here. The IRS Office of Appeals may assign what’s known as an ‘appeals officer’ to your case for an impartial administrative review. The office of appeals is a completely separate division of the IRS from its ‘collections’ or ‘examination’ divisions. To ensure complete impartiality in your case, the appeals officer must have zero affiliation with your tax liability prior to the appeals review.
Depending upon the type of tax lability, there are opportunities to appeal IRS claims throughout the entire administrative process. Failure to win a favorable outcome at any of those levels can be your ticket straight to Tax Court. At which time, you will be issued what is called the “90-Days letter” (Notice of Deficiency).
This letter notifies the taxpayer of the final amount the IRS conclusively believes is owed. The notice gives the delinquent taxpayer 90 days to petition Tax Court for a final hearing. After failing at every level of the administration/appeals process, this is a taxpayer’s final chance to work out their discrepancies with IRS conclusions about their tax debt. There are no further appeals after this process; the case is sent back to collections with that final decision. New liens, levies, seizures, and garnishments may now be applied to your assets for the newly litigated amount. Remember, IRS debt is still due — whether the same amount or a reduced amount.
The Office of Appeals is designed to be impartial and available at every level of the collections / examination administration process. At Appeals, they weigh the hazards of litigation, they have the authority to make deals, they have a different cognition process than the one-track mind of an auditor. Here, they might be determining if your case is worth the chase. Therefore, you are more likely to get a deal at Appeals rather than any other division of the Internal Revenue Service. Tax Court is expensive for all parties involved; it automatically incentivizes each side to figure out an amicable deal.
If a creative solution to your tax liability case could not be worked out at Appeals, the only remaining route is to get on the docket at Tax Court. Once there, your case has been opened up to the rigors of trial. This includes witnessing, depositions, and more complex, expensive, time consuming procedures of litigation.
In Tax Court, a much sterner book of rules will apply. That adjudication will decide your financial fate or worse. There will be considerably less flexibility. There will be a final ruling.
If you find disagreement with an IRS penalty, conclusion, or audit result, exercise your right to appeal. Get tax debt help to expertly petition for a new conclusion in your case. You need one of the best tax resolutions companies in the area on your side.
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Secure your financial future with legal tax solutions that work for you. Contact us today!
Secure your financial future with legal tax solutions that work for you. Contact us today!
