At Fortress Financial Services, Inc., every case is handled personally by a licensed attorney who does nothing but resolve back tax liabilities day in and day out. Whether your tax problem is business or personal, large or small, IRS or State, Fortress will identify and implement the best possible solution for your specific situation.
If you or your business owe IRS or State taxes of at least $15,000, you should consider the benefits of having an experienced attorney advocate on your behalf. Tax collectors from the IRS or State understand a myriad of tax laws, rules, regulations, and tax jargon. Unless you have extensive experience dealing with all of this, the playing field is tilted. This puts you, the taxpayer, at a huge disadvantage. Moreover, the tax collectors wield a tremendous amount of power. They can file tax liens, sweep bank accounts, garnish wages, levy accounts receivable, and seize assets.
Know Your Rights
One of your most fundamental and important rights as a taxpayer is the right to be represented by a professional who is authorized to practice before the IRS. There are three types of licensed professionals who have unlimited authorization to represent taxpayers before the IRS:
- Enrolled Agents (EAs)
- Certified Public Accountants (CPAs)
- Attorneys
In order to be authorized to practice before the Internal Revenue Service, a representative must typically be either a C.P.A., an enrolled agent, or an attorney (to view the relevant regulation, go to Treasury Regulation Circular 230 and scroll to Section 10.3). This regulation is designed to protect taxpayers by requiring representatives to demonstrate a certain level of competence and good moral character. It also protects taxpayers from unauthorized representatives who cannot be disbarred or disciplined for taking advantage of their clients.
Since negotiation skills are critical to resolving back tax liabilities, and attorneys tend to possess negotiation skills that are superior to those of accountants, we believe that attorneys are better equipped to tackle most back tax problems. See Attorneys vs. Accountants.
Taxpayers also have a variety of appeal rights, which can be used to stop or postpone enforcement, challenge a variety of IRS findings, resolve tax issues with favorable terms, reduce the amount of tax or penalties owed, and more. If you do not understand your appeal rights, you could wind up paying a lot more than you should or suffering painful enforcement that could have otherwise been avoided.
Put Expertise on Your Side
Our attorneys can help you avoid disasters, level the playing field, advocate on your behalf, defend your rights, and work out very favorable terms in most cases—particularly if you act immediately. By waiting any longer, you might sacrifice valuable rights which otherwise could prevent disastrous consequences. Don’t procrastinate!
Other tax relief firms simply don’t offer the same level of expertise as Fortress. They cut costs by using less skilled negotiators, such as CPAs and enrolled agents. They cut costs further by putting unlicensed and unauthorized “case managers” in charge of client cases. As if that isn’t bad enough, they cut costs even further by overloading their staff with too many cases. While these cost-cutting measures may be great for their bottom line, you, the client, get stuck with poor quality service and worse results – that is if you get any results.
At Fortress, we don’t overload our staff with cases. This way, you can rest assured that your case will get the attention that it deserves. You can also rest assured that you will be represented by a highly skilled negotiator, since every case is personally handled by one of our licensed attorneys.