Greater Houston Consulting & Tax Services

An Enrolled Agent earns a federal license from the U.S. Treasury Department to represent taxpayers before the IRS. The license carries unlimited practice rights, so an EA can handle audits, collections, payment plans, penalty requests, and appeals for individuals and businesses anywhere in the country. Texas doesn't have a state income tax, so most Houston tax problems are federal, which is exactly where an EA works. Once you sign Form 2848, we talk to the IRS for you.

It can. The two most common routes are First Time Abate relief, for taxpayers with a clean recent record, and reasonable cause relief, for situations like a serious illness, a fire, or a hurricane that disrupted your records. What matters is your filing and payment history, why the problem happened, and the documentation you can show. A strong request lays out the facts, ties them to the IRS criteria, and attaches proof. When a penalty comes off, the interest charged on that penalty usually goes with it.

Most people can. The IRS offers installment agreements based on how much you owe and what your income, expenses, and assets show you can afford each month. Expect the IRS to want every required return filed before it agrees to anything. We put together the financial picture first, so the payment we propose is one you can keep up and one the IRS will accept.

The IRS can file a substitute return for you using the W-2s and 1099s it has on record. Those substitute returns rarely include your deductions or credits, so the balance usually looks worse than it really is. Filing the real returns sets the correct number, and it's almost always required before you can get a payment plan or an Offer in Compromise. We prepare the late years in an order that fits the rest of your resolution plan.

For the right taxpayer, an offer can settle IRS debt for less than the full balance. It's far from automatic. The IRS measures what it could reasonably collect from your income, expenses, equity in assets, and future earnings, and it expects full financial disclosure and current filings. We run that calculation before you spend money on an application, so you know whether an offer is realistic or whether another route makes more sense.

We confirm exactly what the IRS did and why, find the balance and any missing returns behind it, and work out which options can get the levy released. That might mean paying in full, setting up an installment agreement, showing financial hardship, or another collection alternative. Levy deadlines are short, so documented, timely contact with the IRS is the priority from day one.

Any IRS letters you've received (the notice number in the top right corner helps), copies of returns you've filed and a list of years you haven't, pay stubs or income records, recent bank statements, business financials if you own a company, and a rough list of monthly expenses. If there's a levy, garnishment, audit letter, or revenue officer contact, send that first. With those in hand, we can usually tell you on the first call where you stand.

It depends on the issue, how backed up the IRS is, how complete your records are, and which route we take. A simple payment plan can come together much faster than an audit appeal or an Offer in Compromise, which involves a deep financial review. Active levies get looked at right away. You can speed things up by keeping current year returns filed, answering document requests quickly, and sending organized records.