Home / A letter from the IRS is not an emergency. It is a deadline.
IRS helpA letter from the IRS is not an emergency. It is a deadline.
Audits, notices, unfiled years, payment plans, penalty relief, levies and liens. We have an Enrolled Agent on the team, enrolled to practice before the IRS, so you do not have to make the call yourself.
Remote, nationwide. In English or Español.
Here is the honest version of how this works.
A representative files a power of attorney, pulls your IRS transcripts to see what the IRS actually has on record, and then works the options that fit your numbers: a payment plan, penalty relief, correcting a wrong assessment, or an Offer in Compromise if you genuinely qualify. Nobody can tell you the outcome before reading the transcripts. Anyone who does is selling you something.
What we handle
The letters and the situations.
If yours is not here, ask. Most IRS problems are a version of one of these.
CP2000 and CP14 notices
The two most common letters. One says your numbers do not match what was reported, the other says you owe. Both have deadlines and both are often wrong.
Audits and examinations
Correspondence, office or field. We answer for you and send only what was actually asked for.
Unfiled returns
Years you never filed, plus substitute returns the IRS filed for you, which almost always overstate the bill.
Payment plans
Instalment agreements sized to what you can actually pay, and currently-not-collectible status when you cannot pay anything.
Penalty relief
First-time abatement if you qualify, and reasonable cause when something real happened: illness, a disaster, records lost.
Levies and liens
Wage garnishment, a bank levy or a lien on your property. These have short clocks, so bring them the day they arrive.
Transcripts first. Always.
No plan gets made before we know what the IRS has on file.
- 1
The free call
Bring the letter. Fifteen minutes to find out what it is, what the deadline is, and what it will cost to handle.
- 2
Form 2848 and transcripts
You sign the power of attorney. The IRS starts talking to us instead of you, and we pull your account transcripts to see the real numbers.
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File, then resolve
Missing years get filed first. Then we work the option your numbers support and stay on it until the account is settled.
Why this corner of the industry has a bad name
Search "tax relief" and you get an FTC page about companies that were sued, an IRS scam warning, and a row of ads promising to settle your debt for pennies on the dollar. That is not an accident. The model is to charge a few thousand dollars up front, file one form, and stop returning calls.
So here is what we will not say to you. We will not quote a settlement figure before seeing your transcripts. We will not tell you the IRS will forgive most of what you owe. We will not describe an Offer in Compromise as likely, because for most people it is not.
What we will tell you on the first call is which of these your situation actually is, and roughly what it takes to fix.
About the Offer in Compromise
An Offer in Compromise settles a tax debt for less than the full amount. It is real, and it is also the most oversold product in this industry.
The IRS works out what it thinks it could collect from you: your income minus allowable living expenses, plus the equity in what you own, projected over the time it has left to collect. If that number is more than your debt, the offer is rejected. Having a large balance does not qualify you. Being genuinely unable to pay it does.
If you do not qualify, an instalment agreement or currently-not-collectible status is usually the honest answer, and both are better than paying someone to file an offer that will not be accepted.
Who represents you
Jorge Liste is an Enrolled Agent (EA), enrolled to represent taxpayers before the IRS. Enrolled Agents are licensed by the IRS and have unlimited representation rights, which means audits, collections and appeals. Zolt Advisors is not a CPA firm and has no affiliation with the IRS.
The questions people ask on the first call.
Do tax resolution services really work?
The legitimate ones do, in the sense that a representative can get the IRS to stop collection while a case is open, put you on a payment plan you can afford, ask for penalty relief and make sure the IRS is working from correct numbers. What does not work is the version sold on late-night radio, where a company takes a large fee up front and promises to wipe out the debt. The FTC has sued firms over exactly that. Ask any firm what they will do first, and if the answer is not "pull your transcripts", keep looking.
How much will the IRS usually settle for?
There is no usual number, and anyone who gives you one before looking at your finances is guessing. An Offer in Compromise is calculated from what the IRS believes it could collect from you: your income minus allowable living expenses, plus the equity in what you own. If that figure covers the debt before the collection period runs out, the offer gets rejected and you are looking at a payment plan instead.
What is Form 2848?
It is the power of attorney that lets a representative act for you with the IRS. Once it is on file, the IRS talks to your representative instead of calling you, and we can pull your account transcripts to see exactly what the IRS has on record. It covers only the tax years and matters you list on it, and you can revoke it whenever you want.
Can the IRS take money straight out of my paycheck or bank account?
Yes, but not without warning. A levy or wage garnishment comes after a series of notices, and the last one gives you 30 days and the right to a hearing. That deadline is the one that matters, so if a letter mentions a final notice of intent to levy, deal with it that week rather than that month.
I have not filed in years. Should I file before calling anyone?
Call first. The order matters, and the IRS may have already filed substitutes for some years, which almost always overstate what you owe. We pull the transcripts, see which years are actually missing, and file those. Nobody can negotiate anything until the unfiled years are in.
Will talking to you make the IRS look at me more closely?
No. Filing a power of attorney is routine and happens tens of thousands of times a year. It does not flag your account or trigger a review.
Bring the letter to the call.
- Fifteen minutes, free
- We read the notice with you
- A clear price before any work