IRS Law Blog

Although it is scary to imagine, you may find yourself face-to-face with an IRS Revenue Officer. They could be knocking at your front door, or even arrive unexpectedly to your place of employment. You might...

You have worked hard all of your life, creating a business, serving customers, taking care of employees, and providing for your family. Suddenly, your business ran into a few bumps in the road, and money...

Your business owes the IRS employment taxes, and an IRS Revenue Officer has just called you and requested that you come down to his office for a meeting to discuss the debt. Chances are, the...

It’s an old story that the IRS combats everyday:  When a business struggles and cash flow is tight, when there is not enough money to pay both rent and employment taxes, the IRS takes a...

Unpaid employment tax liabilities results in the highest level of IRS enforcement.  The IRS usually assigns its most experienced Revenue Officers to investigate employment tax cases, including pursuing the individuals in the business personally for not...

When you make a payment to the IRS, it will be automatically applied to your account in a manner that is in the IRS’s best interest. But what is best for the IRS in handling...

The trust fund recovery penalty can cause financial havoc for anyone involved in a business that did not pay over its employee withholdings to the IRS.  Internal Revenue Code Section 6672 allows the IRS to...

IRS trust fund recovery penalty investigations are a sure source of unease.  Trust fund investigations can place personal liability on you for not paying your employees’ withholding taxes to the IRS. Adding to the dilemma is an IRS request during the trust fund...

IRS levies on those who are self-employed are serious, but it may not always be as bad as it seems. If you are self-employed, and if your right to a payment is dependent on the...

It can be tempting to use payroll tax withholdings as a source of operating capital for your business, especially in troubled times.  But this is dangerous – the IRS can penalize anyone in your business who took part...

In an unprecedented hiring move, the IRS is bringing on board almost 2.000 new Revenue Officers, starting this fall (2009).  This is a 35% increase in high level IRS collection enforcement staffing. The ramp up...

I recieved a good question about how the IRS applies payments on employment tax liabilities.  The question was in response to my article and recent post about IRS trust fund investigations. This is important. If a...

In today’s difficult economic environment, expect more businesses to resort to using payroll tax money to stay afloat and a corresponding increase in IRS enforcement measures. With bank lending tight, employee tax withholding is a...

The IRS takes the decision to use employee tax withholdings to pay business operating expenses rather than the IRS quite seriously.  The owners and managers of the business who make these decisions will find the...

IRS Revenue Officers are the most experienced and sophisticated collection employees within the IRS. They work high dollar cases identified by the IRS to be of significance.  Focus is often given to business cases, employment tax liabilities,...

I received this question from a reader about a closed business that owes employment taxes to the IRS, and her personal liability for the taxes: The IRS is trying to collect on employment taxes from...

Entrepreneurs justifiably take great pride in their business.  But this pride often gets in the way of a clear understanding of the risk of continuing to operate into a storm of IRS trouble.  The IRS...