Our staff has twenty years of experience and a proven track record of providing tax relief to individuals and business owners.
Legal ethics prevent us from saying we are the best tax attorneys to file your offer in compromise. We can tell you that over the past 20 years the tax attorneys and enrolled agents at Gatherwright Freeman have negotiated thousands of offers in compromise and saved our clients over a billion dollars in back taxes through the offer in compromise fresh start program, and while many of our clients are local to the Northern Kentucky /Greater Cincinnati area, we regularly provide tax relief to taxpayers in all 50 states and internationally. Jennifer Gatherwright has been practicing since 2002 and Jessica Craven joined the firm in 2010. Tanja Speaker joined us most recently in 2017. All of our clients’ offer in compromises are prepared and negotiated exclusively by these 4 team members. Our doors and direct phone lines are open to our clients Monday through Friday 9:00 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. E.S.T.
You should avoid most tax relief firms.
If you are feeling overwhelmed by back taxes you owe the IRS or the state, you might be tempted to call one of the many tax relief firms that spend big bucks on paid advertising. These large tax relief companies are notorious for hiring salespeople who make false promises to taxpayers in order to collect large retainers. They spend an estimated 40% of their budget on advertising expenses, instead of hiring competent employees to handle their clients’ tax cases. These companies also experience constant employee turnover which means client cases are being passed around from one person to another. Employees with high sales volume are valued over employees who do good work. In fact, the sizable fees these companies charge combined with the poor quality of their work has caused many to be put out of business.
For example, Roni Deutch [1], J.K. Harris [2], American Tax Relief [3], and Tax Masters [4] have all been sued by state attorney generals for fraud and/or deceptive trade practices. Of course others have sprung up in their place. Not all of these large tax relief agencies are unethical, but the majority of them are, and the best way to avoid a problem is not to use them.
We do the work for you.
If you owe back taxes, an offer in compromise is an excellent tool to negotiate the amount you owe and become debt-free. Our attorneys and enrolled agents can evaluate your case to determine if you are eligible for an offer in compromise. We review your specific financial circumstances, including your income, expenses, debt, and equity in your assets. We use this information to prepare the Form 433-A OIC Collection Information Statement for Wage Earners [5] that the IRS requires for all offers in compromise. We also prepare the Form 433-B Collection Information Statement for Businesses for business owners [6]. In addition, we consider any special circumstances you may have such as disabilities or health problems.
If you are an offer in compromise candidate, Gatherwright Freeman will estimate how much the IRS will accept to settle your tax debt and review that calculation with you. We complete the offer package that is submitted to the IRS, including the Collection Information Statements, the Form 656 Offer in Compromise [7], and any required supporting documentation. We explain the offer process to you, including the IRS payments and fees involved, collection activities during the offer in compromise process, how long the process will take, and what happens to the statutes of limitation.
Our offer clients are not required to speak with the IRS. Once the IRS has received the offer package, we negotiate with the IRS on your behalf. If we cannot reach an agreeable settlement amount with the offer in compromise specialist at the initial level, we file Form 13711 [8], Request for Appeal of Offer in Compromise and continue to negotiate your case with an IRS appeals officer. While most of our offers in compromise are settled at the initial level, an appeals conference is often helpful when we cannot come to an agreement about one particular issue, such as the value of the taxpayer’s house or the calculation of the taxpayer’s reasonable collection potential.
We offer alternative tax solutions if an offer in compromise is not right for you.
We understand that a “tax problem” is often a multifaceted problem that warrants complex thinking and a broad perspective to identify problems, understand potential solutions, and take effective action. We do not operate an offer and compromise “mill”. While we regularly settle tax debts for less than what is owed, we do not file offers in compromise for all of our clients because not everyone is eligible. However, we rarely meet a taxpayer who we cannot help reduce their tax liability. Alternative forms of tax relief include innocent spouse, penalty abatement, bankruptcy (yes you can bankrupt taxes under certain circumstances), reducing installment agreement payments, and filing amended returns.
We are happy to work with our clients’ other advisors to gather information and provide innovative solutions. This includes our clients’ bookkeepers, accountants, divorce lawyers, bankruptcy attorneys, real estate agents, and business advisors to name a few. We regularly work with clients’ real estate agents to release tax liens, with clients’ divorce attorneys to determine how to allocate taxes in settlement agreements or file innocent spouse, with bankruptcy attorneys to determine if taxes are dischargeable, and with taxpayers’ accountants to assist in tax filings. We also tackle state and local tax issues. Our goal is to provide innovative and global solutions to our clients’ tax problems and, if needed, to work as a team with taxpayers’ other trusted advisors.
Endnotes
1. Roni Deutsch disbarred by the California State Bar in 2017. See September 2017 list of attorney disbarments, suspensions, probations and public reprovals in California at Discipline Report at https://www.dailyjournal.com/articles/343155-discipline-report-september-2017;
Roni Deutsch sued for fraud by the states of New York and California. “TAX LADY” RONI DEUTCH SUED FOR FRAUD http://www.sfltimes.com/news/nationalandworld/tax-lady-roni-deutch-sued-for-fraud
2. JK Harris sued by attorneys general in at least 18 states for not providing the services it promised clients https://www.accountingtoday.com/opinion/jk-harris-goes-out-of-business
3. https://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/business/07relief.html Federal judge freezes assets of American Tax Relief and its owners at the behest of Federal Trade Commission. Judge also approves temporary restraining order prohibiting American Tax Relief and its owners Alexander Seung Hahn who is on probation for an earlier marketing fraud case, and his wife Joo Hyun Park, from making deceptive claims.
4. TaxMasters slapped with $195M fraud judgment https://money.cnn.com/2012/03/30/news/companies/taxmasters-fraud/index.htm Notably, at the time TaxMasters filed bankruptcy, its financial report showed it spent almost $16 million or 37% of its revenue on advertising.
5. Form 433-A (OIC) Collection Information Statement for Wage Earners and Self-Employed Individuals https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f433aoi.pdf
6. Form 433-B (OIC) Collection Information Statement for Businesses https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f433boi.pdf
7. Form 656 Offer in Compromise https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/f656–2017-03-00–web.pdf
8. Appeal Your Rejected Offer in Compromise https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f13711.pdf
