Tax and Business Consultants Built for Complexity

For a business owner, the practical difference is who can stand in for you. An Enrolled Agent is licensed by the Treasury Department to represent taxpayers before the IRS on any federal tax issue, in any state. With a signed Form 2848 on file, we take the calls with revenue officers and examiners, respond to notices, and negotiate on your company's behalf, so you can keep running the business.

Yes, whether the balance is personal, business, or both (which is common for owners of pass through entities). We confirm what's owed by year, separate tax from penalties and interest, and look at cash flow honestly before recommending anything. Depending on the numbers, the answer could be an installment agreement, an Offer in Compromise, Currently Not Collectible status, or penalty relief.

Today, if you can. A levy on your operating account can stop payroll and vendor payments within days, and banks hold levied funds for only 21 days before sending them. Send us the levy notice, your recent bank statements and payroll records. Once we're authorized, we contact the IRS, confirm the balance, and push for a release tied to a payment arrangement or other resolution.

It can, if the IRS agrees that what you're offering is about the most it could collect from you. They look at income, allowable expenses, equity in assets, and what you're likely to earn going forward. Offers are frequently rejected when they're filed without that analysis, so we run the numbers first and tell you plainly if another option is a better use of your time.

The IRS can prepare substitute returns for you, and those almost never include your business expenses, depreciation or credits, so the assessed tax is usually inflated. Getting the missing returns filed correctly often lowers the balance and is normally required before the IRS will consider a payment plan or offer. We prepare the back years in the order that makes sense for the overall resolution.

Sometimes. Late filing, late payment and failure to deposit penalties can qualify for First Time Abate relief if the prior three years were clean, or reasonable cause relief if something outside your control caused the problem. Abatement reduces penalties and the interest charged on them, but the underlying tax stays. A well documented request makes a real difference.

It's a status the IRS can place on an account when paying anything would mean you can't cover basic living or operating costs. Active collection, like levies, generally stops while you're in it. The debt doesn't go away, interest keeps accruing, and the IRS checks back on your finances, but for an owner going through a hard stretch it can buy needed time.

Every IRS letter you've received, your last few filed returns, a list of unfiled years, and recent bank statements. For a company, add payroll records and any Form 941 filings, plus financial statements if you have them. If you hold federal contracts, mention it: we also provide GovCon accounting and fractional CFO services, and a tax problem sometimes points to a larger bookkeeping or cash flow issue worth fixing.