Steven Klitzner with the Law Office of Steven Klitzner and tax attorney for Florida Tax Solvers, joined Good Morning Keys on Keys Talk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about taxes.
How has the federal government shut down affected the IRS?
Klitzner said, “All I do is IRS problem solving, so I feel like a kid in the summertime, and everybody on my street is at sleep away camp and I’ve got nobody to play with. You would be surprised, or maybe not, at how many people not only don’t know the IRS is shut down, but don’t even know about the government shut down. There’s a government shut down going on, and it’s tied for the longest one ever.”
What happens with filings if the IRS is not open to accept them?
Klitzner said, “They had 100,000 employees to start the year, and about a quarter of them are gone. So we’re about 75,000. With the shut down, only about half of them are furloughed, but most of the collectors, the auditors, the appeals officers, they’re all gone right now. The local offices do have people coming in every day, and they’re working with a very skeleton staff, because somebody’s got to open the mail, somebody has to deposit the checks they’re receiving, and they also have to protect the 10 year statute of limitations, so there are some people working, and they have just enough to keep up with the really important things. I was joking that last week I said, I’ve been calling and faxing revenue officers and revenue agents, appeals officers, settlement officers, managers, territory managers, Taxpayer Advocates, and I haven’t heard from anybody, so I didn’t suspect anything, because that’s the usual. That’s business as usual. Then I find out the government shut down, so I don’t see, surprisingly, a whole lot, because very often it’s very difficult to get them on the telephone, even when they are working.”
It can be tough to work with the IRS. That’s why Klitzner can help.
He said, “Here’s the deal with the 800 number, because those folks, a lot of them, are not very trained. Let’s say that nicely. They’ll always give you an answer. Doesn’t matter if it’s right or wrong. They don’t say, I don’t know. If you don’t like the answer, they give you, call back, somebody else will give you another answer. Both answers could be incorrect, so you’ve got to be very careful. Sometimes, when we call the 800 number, we get the nicest, friendliest person who is of absolutely no value, has no idea what’s going on. Then sometimes you call, you get a mean and rude person, and they help you and give you everything that you need. You don’t even know when to hang up on them because you don’t know what you’re going to be dealing with. Fortunately, we get through a lot quicker than the average person, because we have a program that allows us, it’s not our program, it’s a program that we subscribe to, that allows us to kind of go to the front of the queue, so we don’t have to wait an hour, two hours to get disconnected. We get on a lot quicker.”
Are audits on pause as well right now?
Klitzner said, “Yes, those are on pause. I haven’t talked to an auditor in a while, but they also have a statute of limitations. They have to finish the audit within three years after the return is filed. So if you filed your 2022 return in April of 2023, they have less than six months, which in their mind, is almost nothing. When they have less than a year, they panic and they want an extension, or they want to close out the audit. So as we get closer, especially to April, and the closer they get to actually not being able to audit anymore, that’s why we see some skeleton crew just checking it out to make sure that the IRS doesn’t get knocked out of certain audit cases, but the audits, for the most part, have been paused. Every day I look at my calendar and I see an appointment that isn’t going to happen because the appeals officer or the auditor or the collector, they’re not there.”
Remember if you’re on a payment plan, those are not forgiven right now.
Klitzner said, “Keep doing what you’re doing, and if you’re not doing anything, start to do something. This is an opportunity for my clients, especially the ones where the IRS has actually assigned their case to someone, a collection case, for instance, this is our opportunity to catch up, get our ducks in a row. We’re not relaxing. We’re not saying, well, it’s not fair if we’re working and they’re not, let’s give them a chance. No, we’re getting everything together. So when they do open, I’ve already got a list of people at the IRS that need to be called on certain cases the day after they open.”
Are the IRS letters continuing?
Klitzner said, “We’re still seeing some computer generated letters, but we’re not seeing, at least at the moment, any final notices of intent to levy or any federal tax liens. In the past, before COVID, or even right after COVID, when the IRS was going to resume something or start doing something, we had notice. They’d have an announcement. Now they just start doing things again, or they decide, all right, well, we’re going to start levying out of nowhere, or we’re going to start taking federal payments, like social security payments out of nowhere, without a lot of advance warning. So we just never know what’s going to happen, but then all of a sudden we see a flurry of things, and we’ve got to start reacting to it.”
What will the attitude be of the IRS agents when they return?
Klitzner said, “I think most of them are kind of used to it, and they know that ultimately they’ll be paid. I was talking to a Revenue Officer on a collection case who was working and taking care of some emergencies, and they called her back in and they’ll pay them when all of this is done. And I said to her, I said, some people at the IRS will say to me on a case, well, if they’re not paying us, how are they paying you? Of course, that’s none of their business. People are entitled to representation, and people aren’t paying for other reasons other than they can’t pay and I said to her, so I have to ask you this. I’ve always wanted to ask you guys the same question. How are you getting paid? And she says, well, I’m not. So I said, well, ultimately, hopefully they’ll make good on it, and whenever they’ve had these shut downs or anything else, the employees ultimately do get paid. One of the benefits for working for the IRS is that they have a lot of benefits, but from a salary standpoint, they are not very competitive in the accounting world. Even people who you look at them and you say, well, they make a really nice living. Family of four. They make 150,000, 180,000 a year. Everything should be fine, and for the most part, they are. But these people are generally living paycheck to paycheck, which is one of the reasons they fall behind with the IRS, and they’re not living large. They’re not living crazy. But your kids want piano lessons, or you want to take a vacation to Disney World, something like that. It’s very difficult for people to put money away and very difficult for them to pay the IRS. Of course, the IRS wants to come first. They don’t feel that there are any excuses for them coming first. But the reality is, even what looks like a family making a decent amount of money, they’re struggling also. As a matter of fact, the IRS is coming down very hard on federal employees who owe taxes, that’s a big focus on them now. I’ve represented IRS employees who owe taxes, and they have a zero tolerance for something like that.”
There are many ways to represent a taxpayer to the IRS and there are a lot of different solutions to problems.
Klitzner said, “Everyone has a different solution. Some people can afford to pay, and it’s a matter of getting the time to pay, and other people can’t afford to pay, and the deal has to be worked out there. Everybody’s different. Every intake I have is very person specific and their individual issues specific and that tells me what the solution to the case is.”
What about the recent gambling world arrests?
Klitzner said, “I got a call the other day from espn.com, a reporter over there concerning comments on the Heat player, Terry Rozier, who was recently arrested, along with a bunch of other people on gambling issues. It seems he has a $8 million federal tax lien in Broward County, and she wanted me to comment on that and how that could happen. Apparently, his representatives say, oh, no, no, $8 million was a mistake. It was $9,000 and he’s already paid it, despite the fact there’s a lien there. So there was some very curious and questionable comments. I’m not sure exactly what happened. I’m sure there is an explanation, but I gave the reporter some info, so she can dig a little deeper and find out, does he owe 8 million or 9,000. It’s only a zero. It’s not that big of a deal, but she thought it was, so she’s investigating. Why they filed the lien and why it hasn’t been released? Why he only supposedly making millions of dollars, only owed $9,000? I mean, there’s always an answer. When I represent people, I always tell people this. I say, look, if you owe the money, I’m never going to tell you, oh, I don’t know why you owe it. Just pay it. If you owe it, I’m going to find out, and I’ll tell you why you owe it, and we’ll be convinced you really do. If you don’t know it, we’re going to get it resolved.”
For more information, click here: https://floridataxsolvers.com/