IRS Enforcement Priorities: Pursue $900,000 or $9,000?

Tax Collection Issues, Taxes, Taxes in the News

The IRS’s enforcement priorities often appear – well – insane. Consider the cases of two current clients: one client owes the IRS $900,000, and the IRS thinks the other client owes $6,000 from a IRA distribution he took the year of the Woolsey Fire. We’re disputing the $6,000: Congress relaxed the rules for people in the disaster zone. Who’s the IRS going after? My client who had to evacuate from his house with the $9,000 tax bill. Huh? Seriously? Read more>>

Were Comey & McCabe IRS Audits Politically-Motivated? Unlikely

Audits, In the News, Taxes, Taxes in the News

I was a tax attorney at the IRS for a decade. So you know I’ve been all over the fascinating story that the IRS recently subjected  former FBI Directors James Comey and Andrew McCabe to its most invasive NRP audit. Comey and McCabe were famously fired and publicly abused by former President Trump. Suspicious minds now wonder whether IRS Commissioner Charles Rettig, a Trump appointee, ordered the audits on these two men as a form of political retribution. Very unlikely. Here’s why.Read more>>

Why You Should Give IRS As Much Documentation As Possible

IRS, Taxes

There are hundreds of strategies for handling IRS issues. But not all strategies are as effective as others.
A car-repair owner got audited and brought his tax-return preparer (Jim) to handle the audit. The preparer said to give the IRS as little information as possible . “The IRS won’t want to go to trial, and they’ll cave in at the last minute,” he said. But something didn’t seem right Read more »