Who is an IRS Revenue Office
IRS Revenue Officers work for IRS field collection offices and their job is to collect past due taxes. Do not confuse a Revenue Officer with a Revenue Agent. A Revenue Agent conducts audits of tax returns.
When will a Revenue Officer be Assigned
After the IRS assesses taxes against you and you do not pay the tax or make an arrangement to pay, the IRS will send you a series of notices. If you owe a small balance, your account will likely be assigned to the Centralized Automated Collections System (ACS). Accounts with balances over $250,000, business accounts and accounts with potential trust fund issues are generally assigned to a Revenue Officer automatically.
Nevertheless, this does not always happen and an account may end up sitting in ACS until it is caught. Due to the current deficit in Revenue Officers and the early 2019 government shutdown, there has been a significant delay is case assignment. If you have a liability with the IRS that qualifies for a Revenue Officer assignment and you try to resolve the liability through ACS, ACS will not work with you and will attempt to refer your account to a Revenue Officer.
What an IRS Revenue Officer Can and Cannot Do
A Revenue Officer cannot arrest you and does not carry a gun. A revenue officer can take money out of your bank accounts and investment accounts. A revenue officer can force the sale of your home and can shut down your business. A Revenue Officer can also take steps to extend the initial ten year statute of limitation for collections for another ten years if he or she finds cause to do so. Whether the Revenue Officer will actually do any of the above depends on the Revenue Officer and your cooperation.
What does an IRS Revenue Officer Want
The success of a Revenue Officer depends on how many cases he or she successful resolves. Successful resolution means that the Revenue Officer either convinced the taxpayer to full pay the liability or set the taxpayer up on a collection alternative such as an Offer in Comprise, Payment Plan or Currently Non Collectible. The resolution is successful if the case does not come back into the Revenue Officer's inventory 1-2 years after the resolution is put in place because of a default. Therefore, it is in the Revenue Officer's interest to assure that you do not default your collections alternative in the future. That means that the most important thing to a Revenue Officer, is that the taxpayer is in compliance, stays in compliance and is on a reasonable collection alternative.
What is an IRS Revenue Officer Going To Do
The Revenue Officer is first going to require that all missing tax returns are filed. Next, the Revenue Officer will ensure that you are making all required estimated tax payments and are therefore not going to owe another liability when another tax return is filed. This is called being in compliance and a Revenue Officer cannot start to work out a collection alternative until you are in compliance.
Once the Revenue Officer is satisfied that compliance has occurred, he or she will start reviewing your financial information. This includes a 433A and/or 433B financial statement, bank statements and proof of income and expenses. This will allow the Revenue Officer to determine your ability to pay off the past due liability. If your finances show that you are not able to pay, the Revenue Officer can temporarily put you on Currently None Collectible status or suggest that you file an Offer in Compromise.
If you do have an ability to pay, the Revenue Officer will set you up on a full pay or partial pay installment agreement. The distinction is that with a partial pay agreement, you will not be able to full pay the liability before the statute of limitations for collections expires. In order to qualify for partial pay, you must not have any available assets that could be used to pay the liability. A full pay installment agreement will pay off the liability before statute expiration.
This is a general explanation and requests made by Revenue Officers vary greatly depending on the specific circumstances of the taxpayer involved.
Do You Want a Revenue Officer to Be Assigned?
In most cases, assignment is inevitable because ACS cannot work the case due to their restrictions. Working with a Revenue Officer could be very pleasant and convenient. Many Revenue Officers are great people who truly want to help taxpayers resolve their tax issues in the best way possible. They will go out of their way to help you and make life easier for you. Other Revenue Officers are rude, angry and disrespectful and will levy and make unreasonable demands. If you are assigned to a Revenue Officer with this type of personality, get their manager, taxpayer advocate and appeals involved when you can.
There is luck involved but if you are unlucky, there are options to protect yourself. In balance, most Revenue Officers that I worked with have been great. They are people like you and me who do genuinely want to help people.
This content is not intended as legal advice, and cannot be relied upon for any purpose without the services of a qualified professional.
