I have prepared thousands of tax returns since 1969. I have prepared individual, corporate, fiduciary, and partnership tax returns for the last 46 years. I have seen the tax laws go through a myriad of changes.

When I first starting preparing taxes, the maximum federal tax rate was 77%! (now it is only 39.6%, so that is good, thanks in large part to Ronald Reagan.). On the other hand, when I first started doing taxes, the social security earnings ceiling was $7,800. In 2010 it was $118,500! Many business owners now pay more in social security tax than they do in income tax.

You have probably heard in news stories about how the same set of numbers can be given to 10 different accountants, and you will get 10 different tax returns from these accountants.

This is probably true. You want to pick out the accountant that 1) gives you the lowest tax figure possible and 2) gives you a defensible tax return if you get audited. Balancing those two factors can require good judgement which years of experience can give.

If you want your tax return prepared, you should call me.

In today’s bad economy, many people find that they cannot pay their taxes. I have 40 years experience in stopping IRS collections, stopping bank levies and wage garnishments, and resolving IRS or state tax debt. There are several options open to a taxpayer who cannot pay his or her taxes besides the standard payment plan arrangement or Offer in Compromise that most tax attorneys and CPA’s offer as pat solutions.

I routinely work out payment plans, but often an IRS payment plan can be too burdensome to a taxpayer or leave the taxpayer unable to pay his basic bills. I have handled millions of dollars of IRS tax debt during my career. If you need help with IRS collections, you should call me for the simplest solution suited to your case.

Asset protection strategies are the devices and legal tools you can use to protect your assets from creditors, including the IRS. Without expert asset protection you can find yourself in a situation similar to driving without car insurance or leaving your house during the day without locking the door. Much of expert asset protection is simple common sense, often overlooked when you need to protect against lawsuits, protect against creditors, and protect against the IRS.

If you are unable to enter into a payment plan or other settlement with IRS or while you are working on a settlement with IRS, asset protection strategies are used to protect your assets from levy and seizure. There is nothing wrong or “illegal” with protecting your assets, no more than it is illegal to put your money into a safe or closing up your wallet after paying a bill. And there is nothing more upsetting than waking up in the morning and discovering that all your checks have bounced because of a bank levy.

Call me if you need an asset protection attorney.

The United States Tax Court hears cases brought by taxpayers who are disputing a proposed tax assessment, usually the result of an IRS audit. If an IRS audit or other proposed assessment goes forward without an agreement from the taxpayer to pay, IRS is then required by law to issue by certified mail a “Notice of Deficiency” to the taxpayer. This notice is a kind of final warning giving the taxpayer exactly 90 days to file a petition with the US Tax Court. If the 90 days lapses without a petition being filed, then the taxpayer by law then owes the money to IRS.

Unfortunately, I have seen many taxpayers receive a Notice of Deficiency (“NOD”), ignore it or file it away, and then a few months later to their amazement, their bank account gets seized.

An NOD is one IRS notice you cannot ignore. Although I have successfully defended cases where an NOD has lapsed, that can be a major and expensive hassle.

I have overseen the filing of nearly 2,000 cases before the US Tax Court.

If you need to file before the US Tax Court, you should call me.

People often get mixed up between liens and levies. The best way to recall the terms is that a lien is kind of a “passive” thing that just sits there at the County Recorder, whereas a “levy” is active, meaning a levy is an actual “taking” of your money right now.

The purpose of a lien is to tell the world at large, via public record, that you owe money to IRS. Aside from screwing up your credit, what is the purpose of that? The purpose is to tell people like title companies that if you were to sell say, your house, that IRS has a claim on some of the proceeds of the sale of your house (at least in the county where the lien is recorded). In other words, the lien protects the IRS from your selling or mortgaging certain assets and allows the IRS to get their fingers on it first. By making the lien public record, other parties, like property buyers and title companies, can also become liable for your taxes themselves if they ignore the IRS lien and give you all the money.

A levy, on the other hand, is an actual seizing of your money, from say your bank account or your paycheck. Some levies can be “continuous,” as with your paychecks, and some can be just for a point in time, such as a bank levy. (although IRS can levy your bank account over and over if they want, there are usually varying gaps of time between bank levies while your IRS collection agent is chasing after someone else.)

If you are suffering from liens or levies, you should call me.

Trust fund taxes are that portion of payroll taxes that represent the taxes withheld from the employee’s paychecks. This is in contrast to payroll taxes that are purely the employer’s expense, such as the matching social security tax, or the unemployment insurance.

The IRS considers trust fund taxes in some sense “sacred” because the money was never really the employer’s in the first place. The money rather was withheld in trust from the employees paycheck to pay over quickly to the IRS. When employers instead keep this money for themselves, this money can generate a “trust fund penalty” to certain responsible individuals even if the employer is a corporation, LLC, or other type of business entity that would otherwise protect such individuals from liability.

To determine whether IRS can come after an individual for this money, IRS will conduct a “Trust Fund Recovery Penalty Interview” with certain persons to determine whether that person is a “responsible party” for the unpaid money. If IRS determines that the person is liable, then IRS can bypass the corporation or LLC and come after this person individually.

I have successfully defended millions of dollars of Trust Fund Recovery cases in my career. If you have a Trust Fund Recovery problem, you should call me.