Take a breath. This is almost certainly more fixable than it feels right now.
Getting letters from the IRS or the state while you’re trying to keep your business running is one of the more stressful things a small business owner can face.
Pat Smith Law provides tax resolution services for small business owners in Thornton and the Denver metro area, including trust fund recovery penalties, withholding tax issues, back taxes, and payment plans, with fair and transparent billing and a free fifteen minute consultation.
I’ve worked inside the tax resolution industry, and I know how it operates — it’s a fee mill. Too many of these firms take a large fee upfront, another large fee down the road, and keep you paying long after they’ve stopped actually working your case. If that’s already happened to you, you’re not alone, and you’re in a different kind of place now.
Here’s the part almost nobody tells you: in my experience, once an attorney or a CPA opens a line of communication with the IRS on your behalf, the IRS tends to slow down and take a more measured approach. That’s not something you can do by calling them yourself. It takes someone the IRS recognizes as representing you. Most business owners go silent when the letters start, because the whole thing feels too big and too scary to touch, but silence is usually the worst move available.
Enrolled Agent or Tax Attorney?
An enrolled agent is cheaper on its face. So is a scooter. If all you need is a quick ride across town, that’s the right call. But somewhere along the way, you might wish you’d just bought the Harley.
An enrolled agent knows the IRS’s procedures. They know how to file a payment plan, how to request an abatement, how the process works. What most of them don’t understand is the law underneath all of it: debtor-creditor rights, secured versus unsecured debt, personal liability versus corporate liability, why trust fund taxes pierce the corporate veil in the first place, not just that they do.
You can’t effectively negotiate with anyone, including the IRS, if you don’t understand the legal position both sides are actually standing on. Knowing what someone can and cannot actually do, not just what they’re threatening to do, is the whole ballgame.
That’s exactly why lawyers are licensed to practice law in the first place: we’re trained and authorized to understand the legal architecture underneath a situation, not just the procedure for handling it. An enrolled agent isn’t licensed to practice law, and can’t opine on it or use it on your behalf. That’s not a knock on what they do. It’s just a different license, for a different job. It’s the difference between the scooter and the Harley.
I’ll tell you honestly what you’re dealing with and what it will cost to fix it. No retainer built to keep you on the hook.
Billing is fair and transparent, agreed to upfront. If the letters are piling up, let’s start the conversation before they get worse.
Call or Text: (303) 335-9877Schedule a Free Fifteen Minute Call →