strategies-init

IRS Revenue Officers and Strategies for Dealing with Them – Part Five

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IRS Revenue Officers Tip # 6 – Knowing When to Get Tough

This is one of the most difficult things for me to advise you on how to do properly and effectively. Experience and knowledge of tax procedure have seasoned me throughout the years on when is an appropriate time to get tough with your revenue officer. The fact of the matter is that some revenue officers will try to take advantage of your weakened position and, if you let them, they will walk all over you. Some will go on a fishing expedition by requesting a ridiculous amount of documentation to substantiate the positions on your financial statement or for them to conduct their investigation. Some will take a hard line position by insisting on good faith payment amounts or monthly installment payment amounts that are too difficult for the taxpayer to meet without them suffering financial hardship.

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IRS Revenue Officers and Strategies for Dealing with Them – Part Four

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IRS Revenue Officers Tip #5 – Manage Your Expectations

One of my favorite IRS revenue officer sayings is that “the IRS is not a bank.” I find this slightly humorous in light of how many people have outstanding tax liabilities, but it also is a key takeaway about the mindset in which revenue officers approach their cases. IRS revenue officers are tasked with achieving the best possible resolution for the government, which means having the taxpayer satisfy their liability as soon as possible and/or squeezing as much money out of the taxpayer over the long run as they can without putting the taxpayer in financial hardship. Do not think for a second that they are going to sway from this purpose. In addition, revenue officers have a manager look over and approve all resolutions before they become final. If they slack in their job, they will hear about it from their managers.

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IRS Revenue Officers and Strategies for Dealing with Them – Part Three

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IRS Revenue Officers Tip #3 – Get on the Revenue Officer’s Good Side by Making Life Easy For Them

Whatever your occupation, there are just some people that we encounter over the course of our chosen professions that make life difficult for us. They may turn in things that are substandard and require a lot of your time to make right. They may require constant follow up in order to get the things that you have asked for or miss appointments or deadlines without notifying you in advance. You may be one of these people to someone else, but absolutely do not be that person to your revenue officer. Getting on the revenue officer’s bad side is never a good thing. They will be generally less inclined to give you the resolution you are seeking and will make interactions with them more stressful and more difficult for you.

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IRS Revenue Officers and Strategies for Dealing with Them – Part Two

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IRS Revenue Officers Tip #1 – Be Aggressive in Getting Everything Ready BEFORE the Revenue Officer Gets Involved.

There are two things that an IRS revenue officer judges themselves on when it comes to their own job performance: how much money they can collect toward the satisfaction of the liability and how fast they can close a case out. From the taxpayer standpoint, the most important objective other than a successful resolution to your account is to get them out of your life as soon as possible. No one likes the IRS looking over their shoulder and the longer that they linger than the more opportunity exists for them to make your life miserable. So do not let them.

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IRS Revenue Officers and Strategies for Dealing with Them – Part One

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Introduction: About IRS Revenue Officers

IRS revenue officers are the most senior collections agents in the IRS.[1] IRS revenue officers handle those delinquent accounts that the IRS places the highest priority on, so much so that the government has assigned a local agent to specifically work the case in order to collect what is owed to the IRS. Generally, these individuals are highly trained and will incorporate an arsenal of tools and tactics in order to resolve the account in the favor of the IRS. They can retrieve third party records through summons, contact your employer, show up at your home or work, and seize a variety of assets (wages, accounts receivable, bank accounts, brokerage accounts, merchant accounts, etc…) in order to satisfy your tax liability. Having a revenue officer assigned to your collection account is a serious matter and it is important to take that person and their collection efforts seriously. Failure to do so may end you up on the bad side of the revenue officer and may make your life extremely difficult.

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Strategies for the IRS Automated Collection System – Part Two

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IRS Automated Collection System Strategy #3 – Do not be afraid to play the IRS Automated Collection System lottery

I can often tell from the first minute of the call with the Automated Collection System representative how things are going to go during the call. If the representative is rude or short with me during that first minute, often times I will hang up and call back to get another Automated Collection System representative (what I call affectionately the ACS lottery). There is zero point to spending an entire phone call arguing with someone, which will only frustrate you and is unlikely to lead to the result you are seeking. Why put yourself through such misery? Instead, if your representative if nasty or you get a bad feeling during the call, just bail. You may waste an hour waiting on hold in order to call them back, but you will be glad that you did when you get the result that you wanted.

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Strategies for the IRS Automated Collection System – Part One

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Many taxpayers get frustrated when dealing with the IRS Automated Collection System (ACS). After what can be some long wait times, taxpayers are sometimes presented with seemingly inflexible options for resolving their balance due to the IRS. After reaching an impasse with ACS, they often resort to hiring professional help to resolve their tax problems. While I do appreciate the business from prospective clients, I am sympathetic to their financial difficulties and encourage them to at least try to resolve their own tax issues before turning to professional assistance. In the spirit of trying to encourage this, I have put together a short list of some of my best strategies for dealing with ACS.

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How IRS Collections Works – Part Four

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IRS Collections Step Six – Your Case is Assigned to the Field to be Handled by a Revenue Officer

When telephonic contact fails and the efforts of ACS are not fruitful and if your case meets a certain collection priority (usually based on the amount due or estimated due by the IRS), then you will be referred by ACS to the field where a local IRS office will assign you to a revenue officer. Revenue officer assignments are based geographically on the IRS office that is closest to the taxpayer. These offices contain collection personnel, who handle collection efforts at the local level.

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How IRS Collections Works – Part Three

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IRS Collections Step Five – Your Case is Assigned to IRS Automated Collection Systems (ACS)

At a certain point (usually after sixteen weeks), the service center makes the determination that its collection efforts have not yielded sufficient results and the taxpayer’s account is transferred to one of two places: Automated Collection Systems (ACS) or to the Collection field function (i.e. a revenue officer at a local IRS office). Most collection accounts will start in ACS though. ACS is a system of twenty-three computerized telephonic collection centers spread across the United States.[1] ACS essentially has three functions[2].

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