How Does California Locate Taxpayers and Their Assets?

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So this is actually a very interesting subject and something that we as tax practitioners talk about quite frequently. So the first way that California tracks you is through any filings that you do with the state. So for example, everybody in California files a tax return with the Franchise Tax Board and you have an address on them. So they use the address based on your FTB returns and the addresses that are submitted to third parties like banks and credit institutions and things like that to track your current information. Number two is they pull your credit report. So the same credit report that you can pull through Experian or TransUnion the state of California has access to and they can use it to locate taxpayers and their assets. Number three is California gets data from the IRS. So the IRS has a much more expanded database of taxpayer information and particularly for taxpayers that have moved out of California or might be in other places. The federal government is often a much more reliable and more accurate source of information.

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How Does an IRS Payment Plan Work?

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So an IRS payment plan and negotiating one is both an art and a science. Let’s talk about the science side of things. So IRS payment plans start based on a formula and the formula looks at the available assets that a taxpayer has and the IRS determines whether the taxpayer could full pay or substantially pay the liability based on the value of those assets. So for example if you owe the government $50,000 and you have $50,000 sitting in your bank account, the IRS is going to want that absent some good reason. So they go through your expenses, they look at your house, in certain cases they look at the equity in your house, can you borrow against any assets, things like that. If they determine that you don’t have sufficient equity in your assets, then it becomes an income and expense analysis they look at your various sources of income they usually average it over a three-month period and then they’ll look at your ordinary and necessary living expenses. So the real kicker with this is the term ordinary and necessary. The IRS has standards and they’re based on both national standards and local living standards on how much things should cost. So like for example, with your housing the IRS has an average based on where you live of how much housing is in your area. If you go to.

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