Steven Klitzner, the IRS Problem Resolution Attorney, joined Good Morning Keys on KeysTalk 96.9/102.5FM this morning to talk about tax problems.
The holiday season is a good time to get prepared if you have tax issues on the horizon.
Klitzner said, “This time of year, it seems like almost everybody at the IRS goes on vacation because if they don’t use it, they’re going to lose it, so they need to take their vacation, whether they like it or not, and their policy is from December 6 to December 26 they back off on levies. They ruin enough people’s lives, they don’t need to also ruin their holidays. So they do back off for 20 days. However, that means, leading up to December 6, they issue a lot of levies. They take their action, they go on vacation, and then they wait until they come back to solve the problem, but this is a good time, because when they’re resting, when they’re sleeping, you shouldn’t be resting too. This is the opportunity to take action.”
If you want to enjoy the holidays, but have a tax issue hanging over your head, get the process going by calling Klitzner.
He said, “We had somebody yesterday, and he has a lot of money, several $100,000 in penalty alone. There’s never a guarantee. I think I have a good chance to get the penalty abated, but it’s much harder than people think. At one point he said, maybe I should just try doing this myself. I said, you can do that. You can try doing it yourself and when he thought about he goes, no, wait a minute, I should have you do this. It’s not something I should be doing. And he’s right.”
The new year is a good time to get everything in order.
Klitzner asid, “If you want to resolve the problem, you’ve got to catch up and file all your returns first. This is the time of year where a lot of folks say, this is the year I’m going to do it. I’m going to do it, but then when it comes time to do it, to catch up, to file your returns, to start dealing with the past tax problems, they feel very overwhelmed. I get it because it is overwhelming. That’s why what I do basically a lot of times, initially, is they bring me in to quarterback the situation, make some decisions, decide what to do, put things in a working order, to get them organized and to get this under control. Because no matter how bad it looks, no matter how tangled the web, it can always be untangled, and it’s never as bad as you think it’s going to be, could be bad, but never as bad as you think.”
A lot of times people will arrive with a stack of letters.
Klitzner said, “They’re always unopened, and they always seem to smell like smoke and there’s coffee stains on them. I think people are just sitting by their kitchen, drinking coffee, spilling it on the letters, or they’re using the letters as coasters, and they just stare at the letters, hoping they don’t count if they don’t open it. But of course, they do count, and there’s some very important rights in those letters that expire. Sometimes somebody will come to me and I’ll look at a letter, and I’ll go, oh, this is good. It’s dated November 15. We’ve got time to take care of this and then I look, it’s November 15, 2021. So the earlier you do it, you just can’t be in hiding. It’s amazing what we can accomplish when we tackle the letters and take things on before they come after us, before there’s a Revenue Officer driving you crazy, we can resolve the case, and it’s a lot easier and it’s a lot less intrusive, too, if we can resolve it before a Revenue Officer.”
The Corporate Transparency Act means all corporations have to file by the end of the year.
Klitzner said, “That’s one of those things that could involve some severe penalties. As a matter of fact, just to give you the example I kind of practice what I preach that you shouldn’t really do things on your own, I had my CPA do it for me. I could have done it. I want to make sure it got done right. It got done on time. There were no questions. I said, you do it, and now it’s done, and I feel great, and it’s not looming over my head.”
Could the election of President Donald Trump change things?
Klitzner said, “There could be some changes, but certainly things aren’t going away. One day you’re not going to wake up and no longer have to file the old returns, or no longer have to pay the old debt. It’s just a question of how they’re going to start administering it, and we’ll see, but that’s going to take some time also. But the one thing’s for sure, the IRS is not going away.”
Klitzner is local and has relationships with the IRS.
He said, “Even if you don’t come in to see me personally, even if we only talk on the phone or on Zoom, I’m here. I’m local. You don’t feel like there’s some mystery place thousands of miles away where I’m working out of some cubby hole. I have my office here in Miami, and I represent people all over South Florida and in the Keys, helping them take care of their IRS problems.”
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