The Basics

1) What is a CP2000 notice?

A CP2000 notice is a tentative determination by the IRS that a tax return omitted income or contained errors. IRS computers compare amounts reported on forms W-2, 1099, 1098, and K-1 with amounts on the return. If they identify a discrepancy, they issue a CP2000.

The notice shows a calculation of the projected additional tax due, plus interest and, sometimes, penalty. The back page, called “Changes to Your Return,” shows how the IRS calculated—or miscalculated—the amount owed.

CP2000 notices usually result from apparently omitted income or overstated mortgage interest. The most common types of omitted income are securities sales proceeds and retirement income. Omitted investment and partnership income also are common. (IRS computers usually catch omitted income only if it was reported on forms W-2, 1099, or K-1, although other omitted income could be caught in an audit.)

2) What is a CP2501 notice?

A CP2501 notice is the same as a CP2000, with two important differences: No balance due is shown, and there is no “Changes to Your Return” page.

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3) Does getting a CP2000 / CP2501 notice mean that we are being “audited”?

No, there’s a difference.  An audit, or “examination,” almost always concerns deductions and credits. The IRS can require you to provide proof of the deductions and credits you claimed. (If an audit concerns understated income, it’s usually business income, not reported to the IRS directly by any third party.)

A CP2000 or CP2501 notice usually concerns unreported income, not deductions (except for mortgage interest, student loan interest, and college tuition deductions), and the issues are usually reporting and tax law, not record-keeping.

4) What if our notice is a different kind?

The IRS issues many different kinds of form letters. A good first step is to click here for the official designation. We invite you to fax us any IRS notice you receive that asks you to pay more tax or correct errors in your return.

CP2000s and IRS enforcement

5) Does our notice mean that the IRS thinks we’re tax cheats, or criminals?

No—just that they suspect errors on your return. If the IRS thought you were a criminal, they would surely go further than mailing you a letter, and asking you to respond in 30 days! The IRS says they send out millions of CP2000 notices every year. They know that very few people who get them are lawbreakers. Everybody makes honest mistakes.

6) Okay, but does it mean that they’ll be watching every line on every form of our every tax return, from now on?

No—their computers are not so sophisticated. In most CP2000 cases, whatever happens for one tax year, has no bearing on any other tax year. But exceptions, such as capital loss and passive loss carry-forwards, may apply in your case. We will advise you.

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Disputing your notice

7) If a CP2000 results from a computerized review of our return, how can it be wrong?

Most often, in computing the balance due, IRS computers assume that all missing securities (stocks, bonds, mutual funds) sales proceeds were pure income. Securities brokers are not required to report taxpayers’ purchases of securities—only sales. (The IRS holds you, not your broker, responsible for tracking the cost basis of your securities.) So, if you omit a securities sale transaction from your return, the IRS doesn’t know your cost basis.

8) Okay, but if the problem isn’t that we omitted securities sales from our return, are CP2000 notices usually correct?

Not necessarily. In our experience representing taxpayers in more than 1,000 CP2000 / CP2501 notice cases since 2005, we estimate the additional tax was overstated 70-75% of the time. Missing securities sales was often the reason, but other cases had nothing to do with securities.

Some notices are issued only because income was reported in the wrong place on the return. IRS computers look for particular kinds of income only on specific lines of specific forms.  If it appears elsewhere, they think it’s been left off altogether.

At best, the IRS gets one side of the story right, but there is usually another side. Sometimes, they can’t even get their own side right.

IRS computers limit what information appears on CP2000 / CP2501 notices. Your notice is a modified form letter. This means they are often unclear.

When you send us your notice, we can almost always figure out the problem the IRS has identified with your return—even with unclear (or incorrect) notices. Our experience reviewing many hundreds of them enables us to recognize patterns. If you’ve seen only your own notice, that’s difficult for you to do.

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CP2501 notice special considerations

9) When does the IRS decide to issue a CP2501 notice, instead of a CP2000?

Nobody really knows. Many more CP2000s than CP2501s are issued. If the stated balance due would be very large, perhaps the IRS may want to avoid causing taxpayer heart attacks. Also, if they’re less sure money really is owed, a CP2501 is more likely.

10) If the notice is a CP2501, what can you do for us? Your fee depends on how much you save us, but that can’t be determined in a CP2501 case.

You’re right. The most we can do is compare it to your tax return, and your income and deduction source documents (W-2s, 1099s, 1098s, and K-1s), then advise you. Our analysis costs you only $195, with no further obligation on your part.  After we report to you, if you want us to take your case, we’ll make no response to the CP2501. Most likely, the IRS soon will issue a follow-up CP2000, stating a balance due.

If the balance stated on the CP2000 is equal to, or less than, our calculation, we can only advise you to pay it. You won’ t owe us anything more. But, if the stated balance due is higher, and you want us to represent you, we’re at your service.

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Common CP2000 defense problems

11) What if we don’t know, and can’t find, the cost basis for securities we sold?

We have access to information sources that will give us either the answer, or at least an educated guess.

12) What if an IRS notice says that we owe Alternative Minimum Tax?

There’s a good chance it’s wrong. The IRS often miscalculates Alternative Minimum Tax. The very complicated arithmetic seems to stump their computers. If this issue is raised in the notice you received, we recommend you seek a tax professional’s advice.

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13) How can we tell whether Alternative Minimum Tax is an issue?

See if it is mentioned on the CP2000 page headed “Changes to Your Return.”

14) We never received a 1099 or a K-1 for the income in question. That’s the only reason we left it off our return.

The IRS requires that you report all your income—regardless of whether you receive the appropriate information form from the payer. Otherwise, anybody could make the excuse that the form was lost in the mail, whether or not that was true. The IRS holds you responsible for tracking your income.

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15) But without the form, we weren’t sure how much K-1 income to report--or where to put it on our return. Our K-1 came long after we filed our return. It comes late every year.

You may have to pay the extra tax and interest shown on your notice, but if there’s a penalty involved, we can ask them to forgive it. (The IRS knows that many K-1s are issued late. But they would say that, once your K-1 arrived, you should have filed an amended tax return.)

16) But we did file an amended return after we received the K-1—and we got a notice anyway!

This often happens. Notices usually are based on the first filed return, regardless of later amendments. There is no automatic information pipeline from the office that processes amended returns back to the office that issues notices.

If you receive a notice that raises only issues that, by filing an amended return, you already have corrected, you can defend yourself, by sending a copy of the amended return in response to the notice, along with a brief explanation.

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17) The IRS is right—we forgot to report a retirement income distribution on our return. But taxes were withheld from it. So why do we owe more tax?

You should receive credit for the additional withholding on the CP2000 notice. (It should appear on the front page and the “Changes to Your Return” page of the notice.) If it doesn’t, be sure to let us know, and fax us Form 1099-R, so that we can show the IRS their mistake.

However, the amount of federal income tax withholding from retirement distributions is often less than the additional tax due on them. It’s usually only 10% or 20% of the total. If your retirement distribution was premature (that is, you drew it before you turned age 59 ½), the first 10% goes for the premature distribution penalty—unless we can claim one of the penalty exceptions for you. Even then, many taxpayers are in the 25% or higher federal tax bracket, especially if you took a large retirement distribution while you were still working. So you may owe more tax, even though some was withheld!

Did you itemize deductions (does your return include Schedule A?), and pay income taxes to one or more states, as well as the IRS? If so, it’s important that we check the state income tax withholding from your retirement distribution, too. (The IRS usually pays no attention to the amount of your state income tax payment.) That’s because your state income tax deduction (IRS Schedule A, Line 5) might increase, thus lowering your federal taxes overall. (The same is true if you omitted W-2 income: how much state income tax was withheld?)

18) Is there anything you can do about interest and penalties?

If the additional tax shown on the notice is correct, you’ll have to pay the interest, unless it is calculated incorrectly. That rarely happens, though we do keep our eyes open for it.

Congress has designated certain exceptions to the usual 10% penalty for retirement income distributions before age 59 ½. If this is an issue in your case, we’ll carefully go over these exceptions with you, to see if any of them apply.

Other penalties can be appealed, though nobody can predict the outcome. (Accuracy-related penalty abatement is at the discretion of the tax examiner who reviews your appeal--though the IRS wants you to think that impartial, objective criteria apply.) Sometimes penalties “automatically” go away, when the principal balance due is reduced. If penalty is an issue in your case, we will advise you.

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19) What are some of the common kinds of penalties the IRS assesses?

Late payment penalty; late tax return filing penalty; accuracy-related penalty; premature (underage) retirement income distribution penalty; and underpayment penalty.

20) What’s the difference between late-payment penalty and underpayment penalty?

Late-payment penalty concerns the period after your balance (if any) is due on April 15th. Underpayment penalty concerns insufficient or belated payment of estimated or withholding taxes before your taxes were due in full April 15th.

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21) Will we need to sign anything that you will send to the IRS?

Usually, no--except for the Power of Attorney (IRS Form 2848). We can settle most cases by preparing and presenting an unsigned corrected return and a cover letter. (When a return that the IRS has challenged is correct, no corrected return is necessary--just a letter.) However, in some more complicated cases, you’ll need to sign an amended return (IRS Form 1040X), which we will prepare for you.

22) The IRS issues a notice saying we owe more, yet you tell us we’ve already paid too much?

This usually happens when you’ve omitted securities transactions that resulted in losses, or reported employee stock sales incorrectly, to your disadvantage. (Or both.) This is very common, even—or especially—among well-paid professionals.

Here’s an example: the principal of OnlyWhatYouOwe.com recently handled a case for a Boeing engineer who had received a CP2000 notice for $50,000 additional tax. Instead, when the case settled, he received a $10,000 refund—after the principal showed the IRS that he deserved it. (Of course, only a few cases work out this way.) If the taxpayer had not received the IRS notice, or had responded to it without the help of a knowledgeable tax professional, he would never have learned that he already had paid $10,000 too much. (So, by sending you a notice, sometimes, the IRS actually does you a favor!)

In another case, a taxpayer received a CP2000 notice for almost $2 million, after interest and penalty; after they processed our response, the balance was reduced to about $600—the correct amount.

There are also many cases of missed deductions or credits we can add.

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23) How do we know if we have reported our employee stock sales correctly on our return?

This is extremely complicated and confusing, but we have extensive experience with it.  The most common error is failing to report employee stock sales at all—at least, not the way the IRS computers expect.

There are several different ways employees acquire company stock: Nonqualified stock options exercise, Incentive Stock Options exercise, Employee Stock Purchase Plan, restricted stock, and Employee Stock Ownership Plan. In general, the key to reporting the sales transactions correctly is obtaining the correct information/documents from the employer &/or stockbroker. It sounds simple—but sometimes, it’s anything but easy! We will guide you.

24) What if the notice says that we omitted Cancellation of Debt or Abandonment income (Form 1099-C or Form 1099-A) from our return?

This also is extremely confusing and complicated. It depends on what kind of debt was canceled, your financial situation, and many other factors. Here also, we recommend that you send us your notice and all relevant documents.

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25) How can the IRS be so wrong, so often, when it uses computers, and all this is just arithmetic?

CP2000 notices are finished only with human help. IRS mainframe computers are too clunky to do the job start-to-finish. But with that human involvement, comes human error.

Also, IRS mainframe computers often can’t calculate tax liability as well as microcomputer tax software programs. (You may find this hard to believe, but we have seen many instances of it.)

Many IRS tax examiners—the folks who review taxpayer responses to notices--receive only limited training, and know little about CP2000 notice issues.

Others are just putting in their time; they don’t care whether you get a fair shake. They resist dealing with issues that are over their heads, and they get little supervision.

Finally, the tax code, as everyone knows, is extremely complicated, confusing, and even self-contradictory.

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Response deadlines and follow-up notices

26) What if we’ve missed the response deadline that appears on the front page of the notice?

As soon as you provide us all the information and/or documents we need, including the signed Power of Attorney, we will submit a response to the IRS—often the same day. However, depending on the timing, balance due, and other factors, you may receive another notice before the IRS processes our response.

When a CP2000 / CP2501 notice response reaches the IRS, generally about two weeks pass before a clerk logs it into the computer.  But that’s only the first step.  Then, it can take 4-10 weeks longer for an IRS tax examiner to review our submittal, and either close the case, or prepare a revised notice. Because the IRS works cases in large batches, another one-four weeks may pass before the revised notice, or closing notice, is printed and mailed.

The notice-generating computers are programmed to print out follow-up notices after a certain period of time passes without resolution of a case. (Just logging the receipt of a response into the computer doesn’t stop revised notices from being issued.) The period varies, but is usually about four weeks after the response deadline for the preceding notice.

Thus, no matter how fast we move, follow-up notices often are issued. These rarely make any difference in the amount of your tax increase. But, if you really owe more tax, interest, and sometimes penalty, accrue until the balance is paid in full. Writing or calling the IRS doesn’t change that. Only payment does.

However, please understand that there is no penalty, as such, for missing a notice response deadline, unless it is a Notice of Deficiency (please see the answer to question 27, below) or a collections notice. (In general, collections notices are issued only after CP2000 notice cases are closed, and the additional tax is assessed.) Taxpayers routinely miss IRS notice response deadlines. Nobody at the IRS has a stopwatch! They are much too busy for that. Instead, they rely on computers to keep track of unresolved cases.

When Power of Attorney is in force, the IRS standard procedure is to mail identical notices (except for address, of course) to the taxpayer(s) and the representative. Usually, they do. However, slip-ups happen, and our copy of a revised notice could even be lost in the mail. That’s why it’s important for you to let us know promptly, whenever you receive a follow-up notice of any kind. We will do the same for you.

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27) I’ve just received a threatening-looking certified letter from the IRS. What is it?

It sounds like a Notice of Deficiency. The IRS generally issues an NOD only after it has sent out at least one or two CP2000 / CP2501 notices, without receiving a response—or, at least, a response that changed their minds. If you did not receive the previous notices, maybe they got lost in the mail, you moved house, or something else went wrong. If you responded to a previous notice, but an NOD came anyway, your response could be delayed in processing. (Please read the answer to question 26, above).

When you send us an NOD, please let us know whether you received previous notices--and please fax them also, if you still have them. (Helpful hint: your notice is printed on both sides of the page. Before you fax it, you’ll need to make copies of the back side, or else, put it through the fax machine twice.)

The NOD response deadline is ordinarily 90 days from the date of the notice—you’ll see it on the upper-right-hand corner of the first page. If the IRS knows that you are out of the country, you get 150 days. Either way, this is the one response deadline we absolutely must not miss. If we do, we may be unable to dispute how much you owe any longer, even if the IRS is wrong about it.

Otherwise, we will handle this notice response much the same as CP2000 / CP2501 notices. For our purposes, an NOD is usually just a last-chance version of a CP2000.

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The choice of representative (or representing yourself)

28) Why should we hire you to represent us, when we can go to a nationally advertised, long-established firm instead?

It’s true that there are much larger, longer-established firms. But their bread-and-butter is often audit defense, clearing up unpaid employer payroll taxes, lien and levy release, and making Offers in Compromise. (This means getting the IRS to accept less than you owe. It often works for taxpayers in financial trouble—rarely others.)

Our strength is notice defense—a completely different process—and what we do is argue that you owe less than the IRS thinks. We especially like to help hard-working or retired taxpayers.

The hard truth is that most taxpayers who have received IRS balance-due notices will have to pay all they owe, sooner or later—plus interest and, often, penalty. (Our competition might not want you to know that.) That’s why getting the IRS to accept that you really owe less is so important. It may be the only way for you to save money.

Some big firms have many employees, fancy offices, and high overhead and advertising spending. (That’s why you heard about them first!) You pay dearly so that you can look their representative in the eye.  Unfortunately, sometimes that representative is more of a salesman than a tax professional problem-solver.

We are a bare-bones, web-based company with minimal overhead, which allows us to hold down our fees. Of the more than 1,000 taxpayers we have represented, we’ve met only a few, who happened to live nearby, face-to-face. Otherwise, we have represented taxpayers living in nearly every state, and many foreign countries. We can represent you just as well, and much more efficiently, using fax, phone, and email. We’re always happy to answer your questions and address your concerns. (You might even find we respond faster than our bigger competitors!)

It wouldn’t make sense for big firms to take cases as small as we accept. They would rarely charge a client as little as $195. If we won’t be able to reduce your balance due, we want to hold your charges to a minimum.  We see reducing your balance due as our reason for being, and, anyway, you’ll need your money for the IRS.

But if we can save you money, we hope that we’ll earn your trust, and you’ll decide to retain us.

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29) Wouldn’t we be better off consulting a tax attorney?

If your tax return (or other official tax documents you prepared) deliberately misled the IRS, you may need an attorney, regardless of what issues are (or are not) raised on the notice you have received —and we are not attorneys. (Please read the answer to question 5, above.)  If you like, we can refer you to a tax attorney.

However, if your case concerns only honest mistakes or omissions—or your return actually was correct, even though the IRS thinks otherwise--we think we can represent you just as well as a tax attorney, CPA, or anyone else.

30) Okay, then—if you’re not attorneys, or CPAs, what are your qualifications?

Since 2002, the principal of OnlyWhatYouOwe.com has been an Enrolled Agent in good standing with the Internal Revenue Service. An Enrolled Agent has been authorized by the IRS to represent clients before it. Besides EAs, only CPAs and attorneys have been granted this authority.

Becoming an Enrolled Agent requires either working five years for the IRS in a professional capacity, or passing a demanding examination administered by the IRS; taking at least 24 hours authorized continuing education classes annually; paying an enrollment fee to the IRS every three years; and submitting tax returns on time that pass muster with the IRS.  Oh—and paying your taxes, too.

From 2004 until recently, the principal was employed by a large tax service firm, primarily in defending taxpayers in CP2000 / CP2501 notice cases, and has represented and advised taxpayers in more than 1,000 of them. During that time, he has prepared about 1,000 corrected tax returns, written thousands of letters, and made hundreds of telephone calls on behalf of clients to the IRS as well.

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31) If we paid a tax professional to prepare our return, shouldn’t we take our notice to him?

Yes, absolutely--unless the reason you received the notice is that you forgot to tell him about some income you received. We believe that a paid preparer should be responsible for his mistakes, without charging you extra.

However, if it wasn’t his mistake, you might want to ask him how much experience he has in CP2000 cases (and how much he’ll charge for representing you) before you appoint him your representative. Many preparers receive few CP2000 notices on behalf of their clients, and know little or nothing about them. (That’s because they know how to prevent the kinds of mistakes that lead the IRS to issue CP2000 notices.)

32) What if things go wrong at the IRS, despite your best efforts?

For almost every taxpayer, there is only one correct tax return. Many Americans think that what their return should say is debatable, or their tax liability is negotiable. But this is rarely true. How much you owe depends on what the law says. Otherwise, chaos would result.

However, the IRS often does not know what your tax return should say. Our job is to determine that--and if it means that you owe less than the IRS thinks, show and tell them why.

We have every incentive to reduce what you owe, because that is how we earn our money. We do everything we can to get the best possible outcome for our clients. But, if necessary, we can ask the Taxpayer Advocate’s Office to intervene. When your case settles, if it turns out that we have overstated the amount of money we can save you, because of an error on our part, we will refund to you our percentage of the difference in the amount you save.

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33) We’re intelligent. Why can’t we handle this ourselves, and save your fee?

Maybe you can! If your return was correct, and you can write a good letter refuting the notice, or explain it to a tax examiner over the phone, give it a try. (The toll-free telephone and fax numbers are on the upper-right-hand corner of the front page of your CP2000 / CP2501 notice. The mailing address is on the upper left-hand corner. Because of technological and confidentiality problems, the IRS cannot accept emails from taxpayers.)

We recommend that you fax, rather than mail, your letter to the IRS. A fax will get on a tax examiner’s desk faster, and it’s also less likely to get lost. Good luck!

But what if the IRS notice is partly right—and also partly wrong? (That describes most CP2000 notices.) Unless you can prepare a revised tax return, adjusting for the correct changes on the notice, and write a letter explaining why the others are wrong, you’re at the mercy of the IRS for computing your balance due, and they often get it wrong.

Also, you may be unaware of provisions in the tax code that could save you money.

Another reason you may want our help is that we save you the hassle, fear, time, and frustration of dealing with the IRS directly. Communicating with the IRS can be an extremely aggravating, time-wasting process, but we have telephoned and written them so many times, we know--about as well as anybody can--how to get good results. It’s more of an art, than a science.

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Why have they singled us out?

34) Why has the IRS decided to issue us a notice? Why don’t they go after big-time tax cheats, instead? Any mistakes we made were innocent, and only a small amount of extra tax is at stake anyway.

IRS research shows that the most common error in individual tax returns is omitted income—usually an honest mistake, not cheating. (Common sense, and our experience reviewing thousands of tax returns over the years, confirm this.) That’s why they developed the CP2000 notice program. (Incidentally, a benefit is that it makes deliberately omitting income from a tax return risky. Their computers probably will catch it.)
The IRS has enough staff to audit only a tiny fraction of the more than 100 million individual tax returns filed every year. Audits are labor-intensive. The CP2000 notice operation is full of problems. (That’s why we’re here!) Even so, it is much easier and cheaper for the IRS to program computers to catch omitted income, than pay and train more auditors.

Besides, relatively few tax returns have questionable deductions or credits that would allow the IRS to collect significantly more tax. (For most middle-class taxpayers, the largest deduction is mortgage interest, and in most cases, the IRS receives third-party confirmation of how much mortgage interest you paid: Form 1098. For millions of Americans, all other deductions are relatively small amounts.) A much larger number omit income that a computer can catch better than a human auditor.

The IRS says the CP2000 notice program directly brings in only a few billion dollars each year. As we all know, that hardly puts a dent in the deficit. But the issue is larger than that. By issuing CP2000 notices, they “level the playing field” between taxpayers who carefully, conscientiously report all their income, and those who don’t. Without it, they would say, an important incentive is lacking for taxpayers to prepare their returns carefully. Like locking our doors, CP2000s help keep honest people, honest.

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The Aftermath

35) You’ve helped us by getting the IRS to reduce our balance due—but it’s still more than we can pay. What now?

An Offer in Compromise is a possibility, if analysis of your income and assets show that you simply can’t pay your balance, even over many years.

For most taxpayers, though, the best answer is an installment agreement—a payment plan. Once your balance due is agreed, your first step is filling out IRS Form 9465 to apply. (Usually, the IRS puts a copy in the envelope that contained your CP2000 notice; you can also apply at the IRS web site: www.irs.gov)

The IRS routinely approves 60-month (five-year) payment plan requests for up to $25,000---provided that you have a good payment record with them so far. Otherwise, they could levy your bank account, put a lien on your home (if you own one), or garnishee your wages (if you have a job) or pension (if you get one.). We know you don’t want this to happen, but it’s important that you understand that it could, at worst.

However, the IRS, of all people, also knows that they can’t get blood from a stone. Just as an installment plan may be the best you can do to pay your debt, it may also be the best the IRS can do to collect it.
With a payment plan, the IRS charges interest and a small amount of late-payment penalty each month on your unpaid balance due.

36) Will the outcome of our IRS notice case affect our state income tax liability?

In most cases, yes—unless you there’s no state or local income tax where you live. Unfortunately, at this time, we are able to handle only California state income tax notices. If you live in another state, and you had a substantial increase in federal taxes, you may want to file an amended state income tax return. You can either do this yourself, or hire a tax professional.

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37) What if we ignore the state angle to our case?

The IRS provides information about CP2000 notice cases to the states. It might take a year after your IRS case closes, or longer. But, if your state thinks you owe a significant amount more, because of an IRS case, you’ll probably get a notice from them, eventually. They will accrue interest and penalty, if any, until you pay, so it may be to your advantage to amend your tax return first. (Hint: unlike the IRS, some states charge extremely high interest rates on overdue balances—high penalties, too. But if the state legislature allows, or orders, this, there’s nothing a tax professional can do about it.)

38) If we don’t amend our state return, and we get a follow-up notice from the state, can we assume that the balance due it states is correct, and just pay it?

It depends on the state. But state notices are often wrong, partly because of the complexity of the federal tax code. You’ll need to decide whether the amount is worth your time to investigate.

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39) Can you help us with other problems? Audits? Lien and levy abatement? Payroll tax issues? Wage garnishments? Sales and use tax audits? Excise tax? Gross receipts audits? Property tax appeals?

Sorry, no. Our expertise is with notices / letters only. We think we can give you advice and advocacy for notices as well as anybody else. We don’t feel that way about other matters, because other practitioners have far more experience with those situations. We think it’s best for you and us not to try to be all things to all people. We concentrate on what we know best.

40) Are your fees deductible?

Sure—as tax preparation expense. Deduct them on the return for the year that you pay them.

41) If the CP2000 notice we received was wrong, but the same circumstances that caused the IRS to issue it, also will apply next tax year, is there anything we can do to prevent the IRS from issuing another notice next year?

Sorry—nothing we know of. A few of our past clients get the same notice year after year, even though their cases eventually get dismissed. The IRS computers are unable to “learn” from experience in this way. However, if you want to save having to pay our fee for a second year, you can use our response as a model for yours, next time.

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Terms and Conditions

42) Why do you have us sign an Engagement Letter?

It clarifies our relationship by spelling out the terms. It protects both you and us.

43) Why do you require payment in advance?

If we didn’t, we would have to charge higher fees, to make up for the clients who would refuse payment after their cases settle.
As far as we know, all our competitors also require payment in advance, although they do not offer you a $195, no-obligation review of your notice and return.

44) What if we are dissatisfied, for any reason?

If you feel that we have let you down in any way, we want to know. Please tell us, and we will do everything we can to address your concerns.

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Our staff

45) Who are we doing business with, anyway? Can you tell us about yourselves?

Thanks for asking. The principal of this web site, Ben Silverman, is an enrolled agent with nine years experience as an income tax professional. In 2002, he was granted Enrolled Agent status by the Internal Revenue Service, after having passed the enrollment examination in 2001, and he remains an enrolled agent in good standing. (Enrolled Agent status is important for representing clients before the Internal Revenue Service.) After two years as an income tax return preparer, he worked at an income tax consulting firm for five years. During that time, he represented approximately 1,500 taxpayers in IRS and state income tax notice cases, and also gave advice on a membership tax “hot line” and reviewed clients’ self-prepared tax returns.

Previously, he earned a master’s degree in business administration from a top university and pursued careers in journalism, institutional investment management, and the shipping industry. He lives in northern California.

OnlyWhatYouOwe.com also relies upon consultants for quality control and back-up.

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