Jassen Bowman EA

A Totally New Way To Look At Tax Resolution

February 1, 2016

Are you looking to completely transform your tax and accounting practice?

Do you want a simple, focused strategy for getting started in tax resolution?

How about this from left field: Stop being an accountant.

When I was building my own firm, centered around the transportation industry, I became more than just a tax problem fixer: I became a business consultant to the trucking firms I worked with.

Many accountants take on a broader advisory role with some of their clients without even thinking about it. Consider the clients that you have an incredibly close relationship with, which goes far beyond just tax and accounting.

For many small business clients, you are there one and only source of tax, accounting, and financial information. Most of these business owners know an attorney, but do not have a close relationship with one. As such, it’s not uncommon for accountants to sometimes become de facto legal advisors on general matters, also (you shouldn’t, obviously, but the reality is that it happens more often than we all care to admit).

When I was working primarily with small trucking companies, here are just a few of the additional services I advised them on, beyond resolving their tax debt problem:

Controlling employee costs
Managing credit
Brokering freight
Factoring accounts receivable
Adapting new technology, such as GPS tracking, electronic log books, and weigh station bypass systems.
Managing tractor/trailer registration in other states
Recruiting drivers (competitive CDL market at the time)
Sales training
Creation of policies and procedures to operate more efficiently

Taken as a whole, these services are typically classified as management advisory services or management consulting. I have never labeled myself as such, but in all reality, this is what I really did for a living. It just so happens that it was all anchored by the 941 representation, with the management consulting usually kicking in as a direct result of the federal tax lien impacting the company’s factoring agreement.

These additional services are precisely what allowed me to easily justify the five-figure fees I would routinely charge these clients. When a small, mom and pop business is paying you $8,000 to $12,000, on average, it ain’t just for the tax work.

Tax Resolution + Advisory Services = Higher Fees + Better Client Relationships + Fewer Clients

I consider myself to be one of the laziest people on Earth. Seriously, I’d rather sleep or play with the dog than … Continue reading

Innocent & Injured Spouse Overview

November 30, 2015

What is innocent spouse relief? What is injured spouse relief? What’s the actual difference between the two?

These are common questions that we get in our tax resolution CPE classes. Watch the following high level overview of innocent and injured spouse to learn the difference and apply them to help your clients.

Note: This was recorded in November 2015 based on Internal Revenue Code and IRS policies in place at the time. Practitioners should seek out the latest changes to the code and IRS procedures in effect today. For the most up to date version of this class, enroll in our tax resolution specialist training program and become a Certified Taxpayer Representative™.

Unedited Transcript

Note: This is a raw, unedited transcript of the recording that was produced with an automated transcription tool, not a human transcriptionist. It’s provided merely for reference and to help you find specific sections of the video you might want to jump to.

[00:00:00.150]
Our course objectives today are to define the difference between innocent and injured spouse relief. This is a very commonly, very commonly messed up thing, even amongst practitioners understanding the difference between between the two.

[00:00:22.920]
You know, for practitioners, it can be difficult. We’re also going to look at the injured spouse procedures. We’ll look at various innocent spouse provisions and rules, including some things that you don’t commonly hear about. We’ll go in-depth on Form 88 57. And then finally, we’ll discuss appeals procedures for innocent spouse relief. So what is the difference between innocent and injured spouse relief?

[00:01:00.860]
So like I said earlier, this very commonly confused, so injured spouse, this is when one spouse is, quote unquote, injured by federal offsets of the other spouse’s sole liability. Remember, if they’re filing married, filing jointly on their 10 40, then they are jointly liable for jointly and separately liable for the tax obligation. However, there are cases where one spouse has a debt that can be satisfied through the federal offset program.

[00:01:47.740]
The most common situations where this occurs are unpaid child support debts to various federal or state agencies and separate tax liabilities.

[00:01:58.780]
For example, if one spouse has a tax liability that was incurred prior to the marriage or if a one spouse owns a business and there was an employment tax situation that generated a trust fund, recovery penalty trust fund, the recovery penalties are only … Continue reading

Increasing the Utility of Your Federal Tax Lien Lists

May 26, 2015

Federal tax lien lists are useful for a variety of lead generation purposes. However, far too many firms use these lists for only limited purposes. This article will explore several methods for increasing the utility of those tax lien lists you have.

First, make sure that you are running all tax liens through the National Change of Address (NCOA) database. Numerous companies provide this service, just do a Google search to find one. You can also obtain this service through a local direct mail service provider or list broker in your area, if you prefer to do business with local companies.

Not only is NCOA processing required by the US Postal Service, you’ll discover that it also reduces your returned mail volume substantially. Tax liens are, by definition, filed against companies and individuals that owe money to the government. Chances are, they also owe money to other organizations. As such, it is not uncommon for the businesses to close, and individuals to move. It’s simply the nature of the beast. Since tax liens are filed using the last known address, this is what goes into our database. Returned mail volumes of 15% to 30% are not uncommon when doing mailings to tax lien lists that have not been NCOA processed.

Second, if you are doing telemarketing, run the lists through a telephone data hygiene service and/or a phone append service. This will make sure you have the best phone numbers possible for your telemarketing efforts. Our database is connected to a robust phone append API, but that’s just one database. So even if you get phone numbers from us, it may still be worth your while to process them again through another service.

Third, don’t throw away your old tax lien lists. Tax debtors are bombarded by a tidal wave of tax resolution firms during the first two weeks after the tax lien is filed. Then, with the low hanging fruit gone, fewer companies are contacting them. After a few months, nobody is calling or mailing.

Every few months, pull up those old lists, and mail and call them again. For businesses that accrue new liabilities every quarter, they are starting a new collections cycle every 3 months, but a new lien may only be filed once a year. For individuals, the problem doesn’t go away even if it’s not addressed and the IRS isn’t taking enforced collections action at the present time.… Continue reading