Resolving Business Tax Debt
Help is available for business owners facing the burden of unpaid taxes.
Tax Debt Help to Get Your Business Back on Track
As a business owner, you strive to make the best decisions for your business and employees. Your focus is on maintaining and growing the health of your business—not on navigating the bureaucracy of business taxes.
Fortunately, tax debt relief options are available for businesses like yours.
You’re Not Alone:
All Kinds of Businesses Have Unpaid Back Taxes
Business taxes can be complex, and tax debt problems can happen to just about anyone. You may not be aware there’s a problem until you start getting notices from the IRS.
Problems can escalate quickly.
Businesses tax issues often surface in relation to payroll tax records, deposits, and reports.
- Late or skipped payroll tax payments
- Unfiled tax returns
- Business closure when taxes are still owed
- A complaint by a former or current employee
Employment tax issues are common challenges for businesses.
The IRS will attempt to collect back payroll taxes when they determine that the business:
Didn’t make sufficient employment tax payments—When cash flow is tight, it’s tempting to consider skipping payroll tax payments. But missed payments are a red flag to the IRS, and you may find your costs compounded by penalties.
Seems to have a discrepancy in the number of employees—If the IRS suspects the number of employees in your business doesn’t match your employment tax payments, they may conduct an audit and issue an additional assessment.
Has a work classification issue—If the business has classified workers as independent contractors and the IRS determines they should be classified as employees, the IRS will assess those payroll taxes.
What You Need to Know Now:
Facing and Resolving Your Business Tax Debt
What happens when your business receives a tax bill that you can't pay? You may be shocked and angry. When you try to navigate the IRS website or find answers on your own, you may be frustrated by the complexity of the tax system.
You can’t ignore the problem.
For business owners, the prospect of IRS penalties is a serious concern as those fees can add substantially to the debt you owe.
The IRS will take steps to collect your tax debt, including:
- Levies on business accounts
- Liens on business assets
- Garnishment of tax refunds
- Assignment of a Revenue Officer to pursue collection
- In the most serious cases, seizure of business assets
Payroll taxes are serious business for the IRS.
Because the IRS system depends on collecting taxes through payroll deductions, they act aggressively when they suspect a payroll tax issue is happening.
The penalties are severe. For example, Trust Fund penalties assessed against a responsible party can be up to 100% of the unpaid Social Security and Medicare taxes.
In addition, a Trust Fund penalty is assessed against the business owner as an individual. You are personally responsible for payment, and this type of penalty can’t be discharged by bankruptcy.
It’s essential to take action to prevent the problem from getting worse—and get on a path to tax debt resolution.
Step 1: Learn about your tax debt relief options.
Fortunately, businesses have options for resolving their tax debts, just as individuals do. Start by determining if you qualify for solutions such as:
- Offer in Compromise—Under specific qualifying circumstances, the IRS may accept an offer to pay less than the full amount of the debt.
- Installment Agreement—Set monthly payments enable you to reduce the hardship of paying the tax debt.
- Currently Not Collectible Status—If repayment would cause significant economic hardship, your debt may be deferred, but not necessarily cancelled.
In addition, businesses can request audit reconsideration. If you believe the amount assessed is incorrect, you can submit additional documentation that was not available at the time of the initial audit.
Your businesses may qualify for a penalty abatement if you can demonstrate a reasonable case that the circumstances behind your tax issues were beyond your control.
Where we can help.
When pursuing any of these options, it’s important to stay on top of the IRS processes and procedures. Don’t miss your opportunity for a collections due process hearing, collections appeals process requests, and due consideration of other requests that you submit.
That’s where we come in.
We’ve worked with taxes for over 30 years. We know what to do, who to contact, and how to get things resolved.
We Have Tax Debt Help Down to a Science
For over three decades people have turned to TaxAudit when they have tax issues. We speak the language of the IRS and state tax authorities, we understand their processes, and we implement solutions through a proven approach that gets results.
Because we know what it will take to resolve your issue, we provide a fixed-price quote so that you can get your finances back on track. No surprises.
