Hello I'm Melissa Harrison with US Tax Help Association.

So you're probably here today because you owe the IRS money. That can be a pretty scary thing but there's good news. If you owe the IRS money, there are only five paths to you being finished with the IRS. That's right, just five. So I'm going to tell you three things that you need to know so that you can be on the right path of solving your IRS problem. Number one, if you owe the IRS money one way that you can solve that problem is through paying them in full. Obviously if you can pay them in full you probably wouldn't be here right now, you would write the check. What you might not know is if you do not have the money today but you think you might have it in the next 90 to 120 days, you can pick up the phone and you can call them. Tell them that and they will put your account on hold for 120 days to give you the time to get the money to pay the account. So if you're one of the lucky people who can do that, you should definitely avail yourself of that. Two, you can set up an Installment Agreement. Almost everyone is going to qualify for some type of installment agreement. Now there are different types of installment agreements and we'll get into that a little bit later but depending on the amount you owe and your current financial situation you should have the opportunity to solve your problem with an Installment Agreement.

Three, and this is what you don’t hear about on television all the time, currently uncollectable status and Offers in Compromise. That's actually three and four. Currently uncollectable status is where they just put you on the shelf your own collectible. They don't try to collect on your account and the time that they have to collect on your account, which is 10 years in total, we'll talk about that a little bit more later, continues to run. So if you can show them financially that you don’t have the money and you can't afford to make a payment of any sort based on your income and assets then they will put you in uncollectable status.

What you actually do hear about on television all the time is the Offer in Compromise program. That is a real program and many, many people do qualify for it but not everyone does. The IRS looks at a very specific set of figures including your income, your assets and what your current financial situation is in relation to the amount you owe and your ability to pay them in the time they have to collect that debt. If you can full pay in the amount of time they have to collect the debt, you will not qualify for an Offer in Compromise. So while that is an option for many people, it is complicated sometimes and it can take a fair amount of time to get but that may be an option for you.

Finally, a lot of people don't realize you may qualify for bankruptcy discharge even if you do owe the IRS money. Not all taxes qualify for bankruptcy but personal income tax, if a certain amount of time has passed and if you filed your taxes in the appropriate way, qualify for a Chapter 7 discharge or Chapter 13 discharge. In this case you would need to consult a bankruptcy attorney to discuss that further. Now that you know a little bit about the path that you're about to take to solve your IRS problem, feel free to look around. We have lots of free information that will help but if you think you need some specific information, then feel free to check out our provider section. We have members in that section who want to focus on helping you solve your problem that our team has vetted and we know that they have the knowledge to help you make the right choices.