IRS tax liens establish a collateral claim against all your tangible personal and real property (i.e. boats, cars, homes, accounts receivable etc..) including property you acquire after the lien is filed. By filing a Notice of Federal Tax Lien against your property, the government is making public notice and establishing an interest in your property as a creditor in competition with other creditors. As a consequence, obtaining credit or selling real estate becomes difficult, if not impossible.  

Once a lien is filed, it may appear on your credit report for 5 years from the date associated with the certificate of release and may therefore, harm your credit rating well into the future.  

Once liens are filed, the IRS will generally not issue a certificate to remove a Federal Tax Lien until the back taxes including penalties, interest, and recording fees are paid in full or until the IRS may no longer legally collect the tax, due to the statute of limitations or you are able to establish that release of the lien is in the best interest of the government. 

 A Notice of Federal Tax Lien may be filed only after:

• Additional tax has been assessed

• Notice and Demand for Payment has been made, and

• You have neglected or refused to pay the debt in full

The IRS is required to notify you in writing not more than 5 business days after filing a lien and will inform you of your due process hearing rights to contest the lien.  You will typically have 30 days to request a hearing. Some of the issues you may discuss include:

• The back tax debt was paid before the liens were filed,

• The tax was assessed and the lien filed after the date of petition for bankruptcy,

• There was a procedural error in an assessment,

• The time to collect the tax (statute of limitations) expired, 

• You did not have an opportunity to dispute the assessed liability,

• You wish to discuss the collection options, or

• You wish to make an innocent / injured spouse claim.

The Internal Revenue Code requires that IRS issue a certificate of release not later than 30 days after the back tax debt has been paid in full or the tax debt becomes legally unenforceable because the statute of limitations for collection has expired.

Certificates of discharge, subordination and withdrawal typically occur only after you can establish that it is in the best interest of the government to issue the certificate.

A discharge will merely remove a specific item from the liens held and generally occurs when you sell property and relinquish the portion of the proceeds that the IRS is entitled to receive.

This certificate is issued to evidence the Service's consent to voluntarily giving another creditor priority over its lien and generally occurs when you refinance property and use the proceeds to pay your back tax debt or when subordination will enhance your ability to pay your back taxes.

A certificate of withdrawal preserves the underlying lien and merely removes the notice from the public record and generally occurs when you have entered into an installment agreement that will satisfy the back tax debt in full or you can establish that withdrawal is in the best interest of the government.

OUR PRIVACY POLICY

Our organizational policies guarantee that "only" contact initiated by you and required to complete the income tax services we have been commissioned to perform or to provide guidance sought will occur at any time, now or in the future