MAKE THE CALL...

[gottago]

In the last 10 days I have received a barrage of correspondence from the IRS.

13 CP504 letters related to various liabilities

4 new NOFTL forms filed in the county where I live

4 letters from Appeals in SA offering me a CDPH hearing in response to a timely request submitted 7/31/06

4 letters from Appeals in KC offering me an equivalent hearing over specific liabilities and telling me they have jurisdiction over my pending OIC

An urgent phone call from my attorney needing some updated information requested by the revenue officer "working" my OIC which has be pending for 7 months now

This is beyond my comprehension. Last week, my contract mail person asked me this question:

"Damn, are you in some kinda trouble or what?"

Anyone who would care to shed some light on this for me would be appreciated.

[jkeeb]

Gosh, I don't know. That sounds really strange.

I have pondered your statement for hours and and the best I can come up with, and I know this sounds strange, is that maybe, possibly, you owe tax to the IRS.

[webhick]

my contract mail person

Your what? USPS worker? Or is this like a mail box farm like Mailboxes, etc?

I'm not saying that the IRS is perfect or anything (I still can't figure out why it takes 30 days for them to see a payment in their system), but if you're using a mailbox farm, perhaps they received some of that correspondence quite a while ago, but didn't bother to give it to you until the last ten days.

Question: What are the dates on the correspondence?

[Randall]

This is beyond my comprehension. Last week, my contract mail person asked me this question:

"Damn, are you in some kinda trouble or what?"

Anyone who would care to shed some light on this for me would be appreciated.

Short answer: YES.

[Disilloosianed]

How about this for a wild idea -- call the IRS (perhaps the signatory of any of the many pieces of mail you have received) and ask what it is about.

[The Observer]

Sounds like to me that the various operations of the IRS (collection, appeals, and the service center sites) are starting to realize that they need to coordinate everything regarding your situation. Ergo, getting the final notices out and the liens down before the offer(s) you filed are investigated and a decision made.

Filing for a CDP hearing is going to just complicate and delay the working of the offer by the revenue officer, but I suppose this is how your representative is justifying the fees he is charging for representing you. So you really shouldn't complain about a offer taking 7 months to work, if you are throwing monkey wrenches into the works.

[Kimokeo]

You have an attorney and his answer was?

[.]

Well, whatever it is, I have zero sympathy for you because you simply weren't bright enough to dredge up the easily available security trade confirms which are supposedly primarily responsible for your problem.

You know, the confirms which would demonstrate that your idiot husband had a net trading loss and not a profit as reconstructed by the IRS because you and your idiot husband had no documentation to prove otherwise, despite the fact that it would have been easy to obtain.

If you had, based on what you previously have had to say about it, 95% or more of your problem would have gone away.

[gottago]

Wow, I thought my post was deleted, then just saw it here. It was originally under the questions section

The contract mail person is a guy that drives around in his own car (a ghetto glider from the 80's) with a yellow light on the top wearing jeans and a t-shirt and delivers our mail for the USPS. He is a contractor with the USPS (read, no benefits and no GS hassles).

All letters were mailed within the last 3 weeks. The letters from appeals in KC were sent to attorney but the others were not. The POA form was filed with the OIC back in September.

The attorney has nothing to do with the CDPH stuff since this was sent about 10 days before we hired him in August. CDPH was mailed 7/31 (certified), received by IRS 8/3 and not responded to until 4/3. This was right before we amended our frivolous returns in August in preparation for submitting the OIC. The IRS went ahead and took all the money in my bank and IRA accounts. Salary levy was avoided by my getting fired by corporation 8/9. I guess the CDPH was "pending" while all of this happened so it will be interesting to see what they have to say. Attorney will not be involved in the CDPH since our plan was to submit the OIC and this has already been done.

I do not expect or need any sympathy from you all. I just hoped since many of you work for the IRS you could shed some light on what is going on--getting multiple mailings from all over the country is a bit confusing to say the least.

[Quixote]

getting multiple mailings from all over the country is a bit confusing to say the least.

The contents of the letters, not their point of origin, is what's important. Your post left a lot of important content out. For example, were your CDP requests made in connection with the filing of one or more liens or were they for proposed levies? How many years were involved? Did you have a pending CDPH request concerning proposed levies for every tax year involved? If not, the bank levies are not hard to understand. IRS just levied based on the years for which CDP notices were sent, but no CDP hearing was timely requested.

[jg]

The attorney has nothing to do with the CDPH stuff since this was sent about 10 days before we hired him in August. CDPH was mailed 7/31 (certified), received by IRS 8/3 and not responded to until 4/3. This was right before we amended our frivolous returns in August in preparation for submitting the OIC. The IRS went ahead and took all the money in my bank and IRA accounts. Salary levy was avoided by my getting fired by corporation 8/9. I guess the CDPH was "pending" while all of this happened so it will be interesting to see what they have to say. Attorney will not be involved in the CDPH since our plan was to submit the OIC and this has already been done.

Unless the power of attorney that allowed for representation for the OIC was limited, the attorney would (or could or should) have something to do with the "CDPH stuff" under that POA.

Even if the POA was limited; since the IRS Restructuring Act prohibits the IRS from collecting a tax liability by levy during the period in which the Offer is being processed, or 30 days following rejection of an offer, or during the appeal of an OIC the attorney should be given all of the notices that you received.

[Neckbone]

I've never met an attorney, EA, CPA or any other tax professional who does OICs but refuses to get involved in the CDPHs. And if the timely filed 12153s were for the same periods that were levied, your "attorney" who doesn't deal with CDPHs should maybe get his hands dirty and get your money back. If there's a pending CDPH request, the levy is unlawful. Likewise if there's a pending OIC.

The reason your attorney didn't get some of the notices is probably due to the fact that the attorney didn't file the 2848 POA with the CAF Unit in Ogden. If it was only sent in with the OIC, it probably never got to the CAF Unit.

Finally, you should have the attorney--the one that doesn't "deal with CDPHs"--contact the highest person in the food chain (probably the OIC specialist) and get the whole mess consolidated in one place. I fully agree with you that dealing with several different centers all performing different functions leads to a lot of confusion and extra paperwork. If the OIC specialist won't help you out, just write everyone else involved and tell them you have a pending OIC, the others will have to hold their water until the OIC is final.

I hope this helps.

Neckbone

[webhick]

The contract mail person is a guy that drives around in his own car (a ghetto glider from the 80's) with a yellow light on the top wearing jeans and a t-shirt and delivers our mail for the USPS. He is a contractor with the USPS (read, no benefits and no GS hassles).

Ah. Got it. I've got one in the area where I work. His mail truck is routinely parked outside the bar section of a local restaurant between 10AM and 12PM...and then he saunters out to deliver the mail. Most of our business mail used to end up in a ditch across town, returned to sender, or in one of our client's mailbox. All our packages used to get thrown at our door paper-delivery style.

We use a PO Box now. No more crack addict deliveries

[gottago]

Thanks everyone for your input. The attorney has not "refused" to get involved with the CDPH but it was only recently offered to us after 8 months and it covers both the NOFTL(s) and Notice of Levy(s) for all years 1997-2004. There were a total of 4 letters from the appeals office in SA (near us) and the attorney is in Virginia (across the country). The attorney has also been notified that our OIC is being transferred to VA and is trying to get it straight what exactly is going on and who is the contact person for them.

When the shit hit the fan in July (multiple levies) my spouse and I agreed to do whatever it took to put an end to our (self inflicted) IRS nightmare. During a 4 week period, we requested the CDPH related to the multiple levies, amended our previous returns, hired the attorney and submitted the OIC. During that same time, I was fired from my job, our bank accounts were levied to 0. A month later my IRA was levied to 0. Two weeks later the OIC was accepted for processing 7 weeks after it was submitted to the Memphis OIC center. It has now been pending for 5 months with no activity by the IRS until the last few weeks.

I will ask the attorney about the POA (unlimited) and if it was sent to Ogden.

[Kimokeo]

An Offer covers all the years you owe for, not a select few. If some years were jointly owed, I could see two offers needed - but it still has to cover all of your years.

There's no need to consolidate as it should all be under the protection of the offer. Were the levies issued BEFORE the offer was presented in complete format?

[gottago]

All years are jointly owed since we have always filed jointly as married since 1984. There are some SFR's in the system that were configured as "married filing separate" for a couple of years. I don't really understand how this works.

The OIC was submitted after the levies to the banks and my job. It was then held by the RO for almost 2 months until it was accepted for processing. The levy to the IRA was sent to the custodian 3 weeks after the OIC was submitted. The RO was contacted several times by my attorney during that time and was sent a copy of the amended returns and OIC. She proceeded with the levy, telling attorney she had "been in court" until finally calling her back the day she faxed the demand letter to the custodian. The OIC was accepted for processing 2 weeks later.

[Paul]

There are some SFR's in the system that were configured as "married filing separate" for a couple of years. I don't really understand how this works.

You have to elect to file joint, and if you don't file, you didn't make the election. So the IRS routinely sets up the liabilities for nonfilers as married filing separate. I have never had a problem getting the IRS to accept a married filing joint liability in this situation, but then, I never responded to them with TP arguments and always apologized on behalf of my clients and offered an excuse for their sins, while at the same time admitting that there was and could be no excuse. The humble routine works wonders sometimes, and never hurts anything but your (false) pride.

[gottago]

We did file, not just in the way that they wanted us to. We have subsequently filed amended returns.

[The Observer]

We did file, not just in the way that they wanted us to. We have subsequently filed amended returns.

Yeah, the IRS can be a very narrow-minded organization when it comes to accepting returns from people who want to file returns their "way" and not the "IRS way." I think the IRS get this attitude from that pesky IRC that Congress passed - for some strange reason they believe that the law actually means what it says it means. And we won't even talk about their ridiculous attitude in holding out for returns that reflect economic reality.

[Bud Dickman]

There are some SFR's in the system that were configured as "married filing separate" for a couple of years. I don't really understand how this works.

If SFR's are still in system I do not think they would process an OIC, all returns have to be filed by taxpayer