My husband opened a business just over a year ago, and our back taxes made it a pretty rocky 12 months. Neither of us realized that we had so much IRS tax debt. While he panicked, I started digging. I searched high and low for help with back taxes, back tax relief, IRS tax relief, tax relief help or tax lien help.

At first we learned some history about IRS tax debt. For example, in 1913, the 16th Amendment to the Constitution made the income tax a permanent part of the United States tax system. Eighty eight years later, President George W. Bush signed a series of tax cuts into law. The largest of which was the Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act. This information did help us a lot with understanding our IRS tax debt.

What neither my husband nor I knew about our IRS tax debt was that, even if a taxpayer doesn’t have enough money to pay, returns should be filed to avoid further penalties for failure to file. We learned that “failure to pay” penalties were one of the biggest problems financially distressed taxpayers face on a tax bill. This had been part of the reason we had so much IRS tax debt in the first place.

We found help with our IRS tax debt, but the case was tricky. Part of the problem was that the IRS sometimes imposes penalties wrongly, because the IRS employee does not understand the facts of the case, the law, or sometimes even both. If you face similar stuggles, I strongly encourage you to research and to reach out for help with IRS tax debt problems.