Accounting Firm Serving Baltimore

An Enrolled Agent is a tax practitioner licensed by the U.S. Treasury. The license carries unlimited practice rights before the IRS, so an EA can handle audits, collection cases, appeals and payment negotiations for any taxpayer in any state. Here, the founder holds that license and works your case personally, from the first notice review to the final IRS letter.

Yes, and it's a big part of what we do. We pull your IRS account transcripts, add up the tax, penalties and interest, and check which years are still unfiled. From there the realistic choices usually come down to an installment agreement, an Offer in Compromise, Currently Not Collectible status, penalty abatement, or some combination. If a levy notice has already arrived, the clock matters, so call sooner rather than later.

An installment agreement lets you pay a balance over time instead of all at once. The IRS looks at how much you owe, whether your returns are filed, and, for larger balances, a financial statement showing income and expenses. The goal is a monthly amount you can actually keep paying while staying current on new taxes. Interest and some penalties keep running until the balance hits zero, which is worth planning for.

Often, yes. First Time Abate relief is available if your recent compliance history is clean, and reasonable cause relief can apply when something outside your control, like a serious illness or a disaster, kept you from filing or paying. The tax itself stays, and interest generally does too, but removing failure to file and failure to pay penalties can take a real bite out of the total.

Don't sit on it. Read the notice for the response date, keep every letter, and start pulling together pay stubs, bank statements and a list of monthly bills. With a Form 2848 on file, we can contact the IRS directly, ask for a levy release where the facts support it, and move the case toward a payment plan, hardship status or another collection alternative.

Sometimes. An Offer in Compromise settles the debt for less than the full balance when the IRS agrees you can't realistically pay it. They look hard at income, living expenses, equity in assets and what you're likely to earn going forward. Plenty of people who apply don't qualify, so we run the numbers first and tell you honestly whether an offer makes sense before you pay any application fee.

Usually you do. The IRS won't approve most payment plans or offers until the required returns are on file. Filing also replaces any substitute returns the IRS may have prepared, which often overstate what you owe. We sequence those late returns as part of the overall plan, since each one can shift the balance and change which options are open.

Yes. Unpaid Form 941 deposits move fast up the IRS priority list, and the Trust Fund Recovery Penalty can make owners and other responsible people personally liable. We look at which quarters are open, who signed checks, current cash flow and what the IRS has already sent. Then we work on getting deposits current and settling the back balance. For companies that need tighter controls afterward, our fractional CFO service can help keep it from happening again.