California Collection Tools Part One - Voluntary Compliance

So, the first thing I'd like to talk about is I'd like to talk about some of the collection tools that the state uses to enforce collection against tax payers. The state operates very much like the federal government. It resorts to voluntary compliance whenever possible and uses involuntary compliance measures is kind of a step for dealing with tax payers that are not complying with what the states priorities are. In the case of California, the state will use voluntary compliance measures like letters to encourage tax payers contact, collection agents to Sacramento reach out to tax payers through phone calls, occasionally utilizing the local office to conduct field visits when they feel as appropriate and then try and encourage some sort of resolution of the tax account at hand. So, resolution from a state perspective means that all returns are filed and paid on time and in cases where there are missing returns they want the tax payer to file them. In cases where the tax payer hasn't paid their balance then they want the tax payer to enter them to a satisfactory payment arrangement. Payment arrangements at the state level are a little stricter than they are at the federal level. As I mentioned, the tax payer doesn't have the same set of rights that they do at the federal level so the state is generally more aggressive towards revenue collection than you will find at the federal level.

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Sam Brotman, JD, LLM, MBA

Owner and Director of Legal
Brotman Law

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