How Much Does a Tax Attorney Cost?

Tax attorney fees by matter type

The kind of matter sets the fee more than anything else, because a CP2000 response is a bounded task and a six-year field examination is not. These are total attorney fees for the matter.

Matter	What the fee covers	Typical range
Audit: CP2000 notice response	Automated underreporter notice, answered in writing	$1,500 to $5,000, flat fee
Audit: correspondence audit, single issue	One or two items, handled by mail	$2,500 to $7,500, flat fee
Audit: multi-year field examination	Three or four periods, business and owners, hourly against a retainer	$15,000 to $50,000 or more; initial retainer $10,000 to $25,000
Collections: penalty abatement request	First-time abatement or reasonable cause, in writing	$1,500 to $4,000, flat fee
Collections: Offer in Compromise, start to finish	Form 433-A (OIC) or 433-B (OIC), Reasonable Collection Potential, Form 656 and the offer narrative	$5,000 to $15,000 and up, flat fee
Appeals: 30-day letter protest	Written protest taking Letter 525 and Form 4549 to IRS Appeals	$2,500 to $10,000, flat fee
Litigation: contested Tax Court case	Petition, discovery, briefing and trial, hourly	$25,000 to $100,000 and up
Criminal: investigation phase	Eggshell audits, unreported income, IRS Criminal Investigation	$20,000 to $50,000 and up, investigation phase alone
International	FBAR (FinCEN Form 114), foreign corporations, PFICs, on top of any row	Quoted after we see the filings
Planning and opinion letters	Entity structure, exits and written opinions	Flat fee; ours start at $3,500

Each category has its own page: IRS audit attorney cost, Offer in Compromise attorney cost, tax debt attorney cost and, for California payroll tax audits, EDD attorney cost.

What drives the cost up or down

Five things set where a matter lands in those ranges: the agency, the stage, the amount at issue, the condition of your records, and whether a CPA has to be brought in as well.

• The agency, and how many. The IRS and the FTB often audit the same years in parallel, and a business can face the CDTFA and the EDD at the same time, each with its own procedure and deadlines.
• The stage. Settling at examination costs less than Appeals and far less than Tax Court, and every additional tax year adds documents, issues and time with the agent, so the complexity compounds.
• The amount at issue. A $5,000 balance gets different attention than a $500,000 balance, from the IRS and from us, and criminal exposure, meaning unreported income or fictitious deductions that could draw IRS Criminal Investigation, is a category of its own.
• The condition of your records. Clean books mean the work is analysis, and missing records mean reconstruction first, which is where the hours go.
• Whether a CPA is also needed. When the books have to be rebuilt inside the case, we bring in an accountant under a Kovel arrangement so the accounting work stays privileged, which is a second fee, and we say so up front.

Hourly, flat fee, or contingency

Flat fees fit defined tasks, hourly billing fits open-ended matters, and contingency fees are almost never available in tax controversy.

Hourly billing is the standard where the scope cannot be set on day one, meaning field examinations, IRS Appeals, Tax Court and anything with criminal exposure, because the agent can add years or raise new issues. Hourly matters run against a retainer, which is a deposit against future billing: you fund an account, the firm bills against it at the agreed rate, you replenish it when it runs low, and any unused balance comes back at the end. A multi-year field examination might take an initial retainer of $10,000 to $25,000, and criminal matters take a larger one.

Flat fees work when the task is defined, such as a notice to answer or an Offer in Compromise to prepare and file, and you know the number before the work starts.

Contingency fees are rare because Circular 230, the Treasury rules for practice before the IRS, bars them for most of this work, with narrow exceptions for a return already under examination, a refund claim filed within 120 days of that examination notice, and cases in court. Collections work is not on the list, so a firm offering to settle your tax debt for a percentage of the savings is outside the rules, and even where a contingent fee is allowed, a good defense produces money the IRS does not assess, which is a poor base for a percentage.

What a paid consultation includes

A paid consultation is a working session with an attorney where we go through your facts in full and you leave with a plan, and the fee is 100% refundable if you do not get value from it. The free 15-minute call comes first, with our intake team, who tell you honestly whether the matter needs a lawyer at all. When it does, you sit down with me or one of our attorneys and we go through the notice, the transcripts, the returns at issue and your finances. You get our read on what kind of case this is, a realistic range of outcomes, what to do whether or not you hire us, and a fee estimate. The plan is yours to keep either way, and if you retain us, the consultation fee is credited against the engagement.

What is not worth paying a lawyer for

A small CP2000 adjustment, a first-time penalty abatement on one year, and a payment plan on a balance under $50,000 are things you can usually handle yourself. A fee that exceeds the tax at issue is a bad trade, and a straightforward collection matter may be handled just as well by an enrolled agent at a lower cost.

• A CP2000 for a missed 1099. Compare the notice to the form, then sign and pay if the IRS is right or send the document that shows why it is wrong. A lawyer earns the fee when the notice proposes penalties, covers several years or involves income you cannot explain.
• First-time abatement. With a clean three-year compliance history, you can ask the IRS by phone to abate a failure-to-file or failure-to-pay penalty. Reasonable cause has to be argued in writing with facts, and that is where the $1,500 to $4,000 fee applies.
• A simple installment agreement. If you owe the IRS $50,000 or less in combined tax, penalties and interest and your returns are filed, the IRS Online Payment Agreement tool sets up the plan without a financial statement.

Past that line the fee earns its keep. The failure-to-pay penalty under section 6651 of the Internal Revenue Code accrues at 0.5% a month up to 25% of the unpaid tax, interest under section 6601 compounds daily on top, and an Offer in Compromise filed without an honest Reasonable Collection Potential analysis gets rejected, with the IRS keeping the 20% deposit under section 7122(c), which is $3,000 on a $15,000 offer.

How Brotman Law quotes a fee

We quote the whole engagement before we start, and most of our clients pay it as a monthly flat fee. For defined-scope matters such as a CP2000, a correspondence audit or an Offer in Compromise, we can give you a flat fee on the call or shortly after. For open-ended matters such as field examinations, Appeals and Tax Court, we explain the hourly rate, the likely range of hours based on similar cases, and what the initial retainer would be.

The monthly flat fee prices the full engagement up front, divides it into equal monthly installments, pauses billing while we wait on the IRS or the state, and gets reevaluated every six months, so the biggest bill does not land in the first 60 days when the work is heaviest. If the scope changes, we discuss it before any additional billing, and we do not give you a low number to get you to sign and then adjust it upward mid-matter. The full structure is on our pricing page, and our tax attorney page explains what the work itself looks like.

Brotman Law has represented California taxpayers since 2013, with 2,200+ matters resolved and more than $100 million in tax penalties and interest eliminated for our clients. If the range we give you on the first call does not fit your situation, we will say so and point you toward what might.

How much does a tax attorney cost per hour?

An experienced California tax attorney with an LL.M. in taxation bills $300 to $700 an hour, depending on seniority, the complexity of the matter and the firm. At Brotman Law, hourly engagements run $350 to $675 an hour, reserved for litigation and matters that cannot be scoped in advance.

Do tax attorneys offer payment plans?

Yes. At Brotman Law the most common structure is a monthly flat fee: the full engagement priced up front, divided into equal monthly installments, with billing paused while we wait on the IRS or the state. For qualified engagements we also offer payment plans on one-time fees, discussed before work begins.

Is a tax attorney worth it for an IRS audit?

For a correspondence audit over one deduction with clean records, usually not, because you or your CPA can answer it. For a field examination, a multi-year exam, cash or unreported income, or any exam where the IRS proposes penalties, usually yes, because the assessment is set by how the exam is handled.

How much does an Offer in Compromise attorney cost?

An Offer in Compromise costs $5,000 to $15,000 and up in attorney fees from start to finish, covering Form 433-A (OIC) or 433-B (OIC), the Reasonable Collection Potential calculation, Form 656 and the offer narrative. The 20% deposit goes to the IRS, not the attorney, and is not refunded if the offer is rejected.

Talk to us

The first call is free, takes 15 minutes, and is with our intake team, who will tell you what kind of matter you have and roughly what it would cost. Book a free 15-minute call or call (619) 378-3138.

Sam Brotman, JD, LLM, MBA. Last reviewed September 2026.