What Can I Do About Tax Penalties?
Have you ever been assessed “tax penalties” by the IRS because you failed to pay your taxes or because you filed late? Did you know you may not have to pay all of them to the IRS if you had a good reason for not filing or paying the tax in the first place. In fact, you may not even owe any “tax penalties” at all if they were assessed to you unfairly by the IRS.
Unfortunately, when it comes to “tax penalties”, you are assumed guilty until you can show that you do not deserve to be charged these excessive penalties. A “Penalty Abatement Request” is the best way to remove tax penalties from your debt.
The IRS has the authority to assess over 140 different types of penalties. The most common are the “failure to pay” and “failure to file”.When the IRS assesses Penalties to taxpayers they are added automatically to the taxpayer’s account by the IRS computer systems without taking into account the taxpayer’s circumstances — that is, “Why” the tax was not paid or “Why” the return was filed late. Taxpayers can seek relief from penalties by filing a “penalty abatement request”.
Do I Have Reasonable Cause?
The most common method of abatement is “reasonable cause”. Here, the IRS looks at all of the facts and circumstances surrounding the situation leading to assessment of the penalties. Relief is granted if the taxpayer exercised ordinary business care and prudence in determining their tax obligations but was unable to comply with those obligations. The existence of any of the following factors may establish reasonable cause:
- Death, serious illness, or unavoidable absence
- Unable to obtain records
- Incorrect advice from the service
- Incorrect advice from a tax advisor
- Fire, casualty, natural disaster, or other disturbance
- Official disaster area
- Service error
Call us confidentially by filling out our confidential contact form to schedule a free initial consultation.
