Eric Green, Author at CPA Trendlines

Four Ways to Handle Federal Tax Liens

There’s more than one route to satisfying the IRS Collection Division.

By Eric L. Green

IRS tax liens can have a profound impact on an individual’s situation, affecting their ability to get loans, sell property or engage in business activities. As such, it is crucial for individuals to understand how IRS tax liens work and the options available for getting rid of them.

MORE: The IRS Is Coming! Get Your Clients into Compliance | Tax Chat: Eric Green Reveals The Tax Rep Guide to Tax Season
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In this article we discuss approaches and factors to consider when dealing with IRS tax liens, offering insights and advice to help taxpayers navigate this process.

Understanding IRS Tax Liens

Before discussing ways to remove tax liens, it is important to get a basic understanding of what they entail. A tax lien represents a right against a taxpayer’s assets, and is used by the IRS to secure its interest in the taxpayer’s assets – both those owned at the time and those later acquired.
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BUSY SEASON MANAGEMENT

The IRS Is Coming! Get Your Clients into Compliance

10 million high-income taxpayers targeted.

By Eric Green

Those of us in the know have been saying for a while now that the IRS is sending a “wave” of tax notices, and you need to prepare your clients for compliance and, ultimately, remittance and resolution. Well, that day has finally come.

The IRS is launching its long-awaited effort to crack down on high-income taxpayers who have failed to file tax returns.

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For practitioners, many taxpayers will be scrambling for help from tax professionals. Understanding how to handle these taxpayers when they come in will have a real impact on how painful the re-entry into the tax system is going to be.

CLIENT SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES

Tax Chat: Eric Green Reveals The Tax Rep Guide to Tax Season

With Eric Green

Renowned tax attorney Eric L. Green delivers a roadmap for seizing tax resolution opportunities this tax season in the new video from last week’s first Tax Chat of the year, hosted by Seth Fineberg.

MORE TAX SEASON: FTC Nails TurboTax for ‘Free Filing’ Scam | | Offer Your Tax Clients Other Services | Higher Fees to Start: Ten Ways to Make Your Tax Season Better | Tax Pros Handle 37.7% of E-filings | If Only the IRS’s Tax Pro Were Useful | Can Your Tax Reviewers Answer These 10 Questions? | Tax Pros File 33% of Early Returns | Can’t IRS Online Accounts Be More Useful?

In this live webinar, attendees – and now you – get the fundamentals for catching lucrative tax rep engagements without adding to busy season workloads. With live, real-time Q&A, everyone’s questions got answered.
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FEATURED

What I Wish Clients Knew about Tax Liens

Equity is key.

By Eric L. Green
Tax Rep Network

“I know I can’t sell the property because the IRS has a lien for $80,000 it filed two years ago and there is not enough equity, and I don’t have the money to pay them.”

MORE: Tax: Explaining the Bad News about Canceled Debt to Clients | Offers in Compromise Aren’t for Everyone
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Ever heard this? We do, on almost a weekly basis. There is a lot to unpack there, but to cut to the chase:

FEATURED

Tax: Explaining the Bad News about Canceled Debt to Clients

Meet Form 982.

By Eric L. Green
Tax Rep Network

“What do you mean I have to pay tax on that debt? It was a debt, and they forgave it. The bank gave me a gift; I am pretty sure that is how it works.”

MORE: Offers in Compromise Aren’t for Everyone
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All of a sudden, my client – who five minutes before told me they knew nothing about taxes – is now explaining to me, a tax attorney, that the canceled debt cannot be income and that a third-party bank obviously meant it as a gift.

Sadly, it is not a gift; there was never any intent for it to be a gift. When either the bank or another creditor writes off that debt you owed, they are required to file a 1099-C to report the canceled debt to the IRS so the lender can take the bad debt write-off. According to Congress, the courts and the IRS, the recipient now has income because they received value that they do not have to repay. In tax parlance it’s called an “ascension to wealth.”

FEATURED

Offers in Compromise Aren’t for Everyone

How much can the client pay?

By Eric L. Green
Tax Rep Network

No IRS program is more interesting yet misunderstood than the IRS’s offer in compromise program. For taxpayers who owe money to the IRS, between 15 million and 20 million of them, the thought that they can settle their back tax debt for less than the amount owed is an answer to many of their prayers.

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Many people have seen the late-night television ads or heard the satellite radio spots: the taxpayer, who seems just like them, owed huge sums of money to the IRS and was being abused by the callous tax machine when the advertising company came to the rescue and settled that tax debt for “pennies on the dollar.”

Are these ads telling us the truth? Can taxpayers really settle their tax debt for little to no money? The answer is yes, they can, but it depends upon their financial situation.

AUTHORS in the NEWS

Annual Criminal Tax Conference Set for June 4

The one-day online conference features IRS leaders and top tax attorneys and eight CPE credits.

Hosted by Eric Green

Key IRS leaders and nationally recognized criminal tax attorneys will convene June 4 for The Fourth Annual Criminal Tax Day 2021, a one-day online conference hosted by Green & Sklarz Foundation Trust that provides educational CPE/CLE sessions for CPAs, EAs, and attorneys on the hottest criminal tax topics. All proceeds go to charity.

WEBINARS & SPECIAL EVENTS

Thursday, Nov. 12: The Biggest Tax Screw-Ups! with Eric Green

Learn from Cases I Screwed Up So You Won’t Have To!

Thursday, Nov. 12
2 pm ET / 11 am PT
2 hours, 2 CPE, 2 IRS CE
View Details

Program:

The top pilots not only have thousands of flying hours under their belts; they also study things like accident reports so they can learn from other pilot’s mistakes.

This workshop provides a rare sneak peek into the tax resolution cases – those that went wrong – of one of the top tax attorneys in the U.S. You’ll gain valuable insights from his mistakes so you can apply his lessons to your current client’s situations. Plus, you’ll be entertained along the way!

Learning Objectives:

Understand how the payroll liability and trust fund assessment process works
Identify critical issues when seeking penalty abatement
Explain how the Reasonable Collection Potential formula works
Describe when innocent spouse relief from a joint liability is available and how to seek it

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Eric Green

MORE AT STORE.CPATRENDLINES.COM

Eric L. Green is a practicing tax attorney, author, speaker, and coach.

He founded Tax Rep LLC, which runs the popular tax representation practice-growth training and coaching program Tax Rep Network.

As the primary instructor and coach at Tax Rep Network, he has helped hundreds of accountants start and grow successful tax representation practices.

Eric is a partner and founder of Green & Sklarz law firm in New Haven, Conn., where he focuses on taxpayer representation before the IRS, Department of Justice Tax Division, and state revenue departments. Before becoming an attorney, Eric was a senior tax consultant for national and international accounting firms, including KPMG and Deloitte & Touche.

Eric developed a national reputation by building a remarkable record of negotiating favorable settlements in thousands of civil cases against government agencies and has also been able to convince government agents and attorneys to forgo criminal charges and civilly resolve many cases.

Eric is a Fellow of the American College of Tax Counsel, an organization in which membership is an honor reserved for those at the top of their chosen profession. The College’s members, called “Fellows,” are recognized for their extraordinary accomplishments, professional achievements, and dedication to improving the practice of tax law. Fellows must be nominated by their peers for this honor.

Eric is a frequent lecturer at American Bar Association Tax Section conferences, accounting conferences, and state Enrolled Agent conferences. He served as adjunct faculty at the University of Connecticut School of Law, teaching law students to handle taxpayer representation matters in the low-income taxpayer clinic. He is often quoted in the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, CreditCard.com, and Consumer Reports Financial News.

Eric is the author of The Accountant’s Guide to IRS Collection, the Accountant’s Guide to Resolving Tax Debts, a contributing author of Advocating for Low-Income Taxpayers: A Clinical Studies Casebook, and was interviewed for the book Stop Hiding from the IRS: The Insider’s Guide to Solving Your Tax Debts Once and For All.

He received his Bachelor of Business Administration degree in Accounting with a minor in International Business from Hofstra University and is an honors graduate of the New England School of Law. He also earned a Master of Laws in Taxation from Boston University School of Law.

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