When Should You Contact a Tax Attorney?

Although you should contact a tax attorney as soon as you receive ANY contact from the IRS, it is vitally important that you CALL A TAX ATTORNEY AS SOON AS YOU RECEIVE, A NOTICE OF LIEN, A NOTICE OF LEVY, A NOTICE OF DEFICIENCY, A NOTICE OF CHANGE IN YOUR ACCOUNT, A NOTICE OF AUDIT. All of these notices have time sensitive remedies that must be dealt with immediately to avoid losing your rights and defenses under the law!

Time is of the essence more with the IRS then in just about any other legal issue. Not only is time an issue in increasing your penalty and interest amounts, but many of your legitimate defenses and options dissolve as time goes on. When you get a proposed adjustment to your taxes, you have a very limited time to file a legal memorandum called an abatement letter. If this time passes, you will get a decision by the IRS concerning these adjustments. When you receive this decision, you have a very limited time to file for an appeals conference with accompanying legal memorandum. If this time passes without action, you will receive a “Deficiency Notice”. When you receive a deficiency notice, the time again ticks very rapidly toward a file assessment. If you do not take action quickly, the IRS's decision will become final. All of this is true even if you are completely in the right, you don’t owe anything, and the IRS is wrong. If all these time frames have passed, you still will have defenses and options, but they are limited to post assessment criteria.