 Internal revenue service IRS tax news important details to understand when the IRS might contact taxpayers Details when the IRS might contact attack. Let me let me take a wild guess as to when the IRS might contact a taxpayer When they want more money, I mean, can't we just sum it up pretty pretty much like that? You know when the IRS wants more money, you know, they're probably gonna start contacting taxpayers at that point in time I mean, honestly, like like the IRS is like a typical college kid demanding more money because they spent it all on beer Or whatever they do these days. I mean honestly that the government's been making so many errors with the economy inflation and foreign policy It's ridiculous and then they basically claim like it's your fault for not properly carrying some subtotal from schedule C to schedule S C to schedule to to form 1040 line 10 or something I mean honestly Like like I'm convinced that the art of government is the art of the red herring I'm telling you but instead of dragging a dead fish to throw the dogs off the trail The government drags tick-tock influencers through the Oval Office to dumbify the American public Now mean honestly, it's like it's more dumbifying than the fentanyl They've refused to stop coming across the southern border like like every age has its distractions You know, I mean the the Romans had the Coliseum and the gladiators Whereas we have tick-tock and the drag queen story hour Mean honestly the government getting mad at people making errors is like the Joker getting mad at Kamala Harris for her Scary shrieking cackling awkward laughing Okay Wow Actually The Joker may have a point there. I mean that was that was way over the top It'd be funny if it wasn't so pathetic No, what the heck I'll laugh anyway I Are 2023-56 March 23rd 2023 Washington The internal revenue service reaches out in multiple ways to educate taxpayers while ensuring it fairly enforces the nation's tax laws There are important factors to keep in mind about when the IRS may initiate direct contact with a taxpayer For people who owe taxes the IRS provides many different payment options To help taxpayers meet their obligations Taxpayers can avoid late filing and interest penalties by submitting their tax return and using one of these options There's a link to that here to pay what they owe by April 18th For those struggling to pay in full by the deadline the IRS offers several different options For example, most individual taxpayers qualify for a payment plan and can use the IRS online payment agreement There's a link to that here to set up a payment plan So remember the goal here. We're trying to avoid contact from the IRS because that's usually not good And we're trying to avoid the sticks of penalties and interest and how do we do that? We comply right we that means we have to file the tax return by the deadline April 18th or possibly file an extension if we file the extension We note that that doesn't mean that we don't still have to pay them because those are two different things in essence So if you owe them money by April 18th filing an extension doesn't avoid getting hit from the sticks of penalties and entry Interest related to the late payments, although it might avoid getting hit from the sticks of penalties and interest for The also the late filing, right? There are two different things. That's what I'm trying to be pointing out here There are two different things now if someone can't pay the taxes then What you don't want to do is just ignore the situation Because what usually happens to iris being a slow bureaucratic kind of system is nothing at first But then you're gonna have an accumulation of penalties and interest over time and eventually the steamroller will hit you eventually the iris will will take action at some point in time and By that time you're gonna have a lot of penalties and interest tacked on over the top of the original debt Which is not good. So what you want to do then is try to set up a payment plan or something to take proactive action That's what the tax code is incentivizing us to do right to avoid getting hit with the sticks And that means that if you can't pay the tax you want to set up an online payment agreement or something like that It's usually a fairly easy painless thing to do you don't have to you know Go groveled anyone or anything you can go online and basically fill out and usually fill out the payment And that's usually again far better than doing nothing even though doing nothing Doesn't have any consequences in the short term It's it'll compile usually in the long term and then cause a bigger problem. So I so So so you can have the online payment agreement to set up a payment plan Including an installment agreement to pay off an outstanding balance over time an installment agreement like a loan a typical loan Most people are familiar with like a mortgage you pay it off in monthly payments often times So people encountering a tax issue such as unpaid bill or a question about their taxes will typically receive multiple letters in the mail from the IRS so usually people are well aware of what the eye of What the iris is doing or what they want by the time they actually take like collective action because they've been sending out letters They're usually going to be slow iris moving bureaucracy slow moving bureaucracy, but the more that sometimes when people just don't see any actual action being taken for a long period of time then it becomes easier to ignore the the Messages that are coming and then the iris will take action at some point In time and by that again by that time the penalties and entries will typically be Substantially higher than they otherwise would have been so people are encouraged to respond to these letters quickly since Interests and penalties can compound quickly most irs Contacts with taxpayers are through regular mail delivery by the United States post postal service So they're they're the old ancient snail mail. That's how they do it So they're not going to be tick-tocking you or you know generally they'll be doing tick-tock, but not for your personal debt That's just for entertainment purposes for whatever But the so so actually I think they banned tick-tock in the federal the federal government So they but whatever in any case they don't contact you with the tweets or the Facebook's Messages or anything they usually use the snail mail usually so however there are limited Circumstances when the iris will come to a home or business as part of a collection Investigation and audit or an ongoing criminal investigation. That's when it gets scary man irs in-person visits irs employees that may make face-to-face visits outside an irs office include revenue officers revenue agents and irs criminal Investigation special agents irs employees are trained to respect taxpayer rights And there are some important facts to keep in mind about the different types of visits You got the revenue officers or irs civil enforcement employees who work to resolve compliance issues such as Unfilled return file returns and or taxes owed all situations where the taxpayer typically would have received multiple irs letters in Advance so at some point They send rocky out. That's so no probably At some point, you don't even know any case this in-person visit may be unscheduled and can can be to share information Inform taxpayers of their tax filing and payment obligations and work with taxpayers to resolve their tax issues and bring them into Compliance, I don't like the sound of that. I don't like to say indicate They conduct interviews to gather financial information and provide taxpayers with the necessary steps to become and remain compliant with the tax laws revenue agents usually conduct in-person field audits that are normally at the taxpayers home place of business or accounts Office where the organization's financial books and records are located Revenue agents will make contact via mail or phone prior to any visits You've got the warning action there revenue offices and agents always carry two forms of official credentials with a serial number and their photo Taxpayers have the right to see each of these credentials and can also request an additional method to verify their Identification remember taxpayers should know they have a tax issue before the visit occur Since multiple mailings occur in this situation more information on identifying legitimate irs Representatives and how to report scams can be found at irs.gov and then you got the irs ci special agents In fact, this is the ones that got like Al Capone or something. I'm I guess I'm just you know the whatever CI special agents Investigate potential criminal violations of the internal revenue code and related financial crimes irs ci's investigative Jurisdiction includes tax money laundering and bank Secrecy secrecy act laws irs ci special agents always present their law enforcement credentials when conducting Investigations irs ci may visit a taxpayers home or business unannounced during an Investigation so they can just pop up anytime because they think they might suspect you're a criminal So they get so then they get to do whatever they want So however, they will not demand any sort of payment learn more about about irs ci on irs.gov So that sounds like an I've had teaching a lot of people are kind of interested in that irs ci Fraud kind of stuff, which does sound kind of like an interesting thing You can follow the money man follow the money. That's where it's at. You think it's boring, but no, but no That's how you get things done crunching the numbers crunching the numbers Anyway, how to report impersonation scams if a person doesn't have a previously known tax issue and suspect someone is trying to Impersonate an irs employee. There are a variety of options to report phone email and other impersonation scams report impersonation scams to the Treasury Inspector General for tax administration on the tig ta report Waste fraud and abuse web page. There's a link to that here taxpayers can also call There's a number I won't say it here because there'll be a link to this in the description. You can check it out Protect your community by reporting fraud scams and bad business practices report phone scams to the Federal Trade Commission at report fraud FTC there's a link to that here report an unsolicited email claiming to be from the irs or an irs related system like the electronic federal tax payment system to the irs at fishing at irs.gov for a comprehensive listing of recent tax scams Consumer alerts and how to report them you can visit tax scams forward slash consumer alerts There's links to all that stuff here. There'll be a link to this in the description