What Do I Do If I Have Not Filed Taxes in Multiple Years?

So the first thing that we do when we have a client who comes in as a non-filer and may be a few years behind on their taxes is we do what we call an analysis. We go to the IRS, we get copies of their entire file and we go through the client's wage, income and account history to determine what income they had in what years, at least what the IRS has on file, and what we're seeing in their account to determine whether or not they have any liability associated with that. From there we recommend and outline a plan of action for the client. A common misconception is that non-filers have is that you haven't filed multiple years of tax returns, so you have to go through and file every single tax return for every single year. That's simply not the case, so one of the reasons we do the analysis is to determine exactly what years the taxpayer has to file for, exactly what type of income that they're looking at. The next thing we do is we get all that information in an easily readable form over to the client's CPA so that they can prepare the returns that are needed to solve the issue. Once those returns get prepared, signed and filed with the IRS, eventually, about six weeks after processing,

the client will start receiving bills and then once we understand how much the client owes with penalties and interest, we can start putting a collection resolution in place with the IRS. So even though the fact that you haven't filed tax returns for a number of years seems like a daunting task, if you break it down step by step it's actually pretty easy to deal with the problem. While it's pretty straightforward to deal with the problem, it may not always be easy but the good news is we have experience in dealing with lots of non-filing cases and can help guide you through it as best as possible.

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Sam Brotman, JD, LLM, MBA

Owner and Director of Legal
Brotman Law

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