We have successfully defended clients in dozens of enforced collection matters to a point of resolution of the liability by compromise or other planned initiatives. All initiatives are based upon the Client's financial circumstances, best collection defense practices and available legal recourse. Through the Collection Appeals and Collection Due Process Hearings Functions within IRS, we defend clients from the ravages of enforced tax collection. This may involve us from the level of compliance judicial appeal of an adverse Collection Due Process Appeal finding. An appeal may frame issues with reference to income tax collection alternatives that IRS might not have considered before the filing of a judicial appeal. In business payroll tax collection cases we have presented Installment Agreements With Payments to Trust Fund as collection alternatives to levy and sale of business assets. The IRS considers such agreements outside the scope of its discretion, and refuses to allow them at all levels. We believe that there is substantial legal authority supporting the proposition that the IRS position is an abuse of discretion and should be struck down by the courts. We have pursued that argument on behalf of clients.
It is particularly noteworthy that a recent case in the Eighth Federal Circuit spoke to the definition of the substance of what may be heard in a judicial appeal from a Collection Due Process hearing. This case binds the United States Tax Court, the court in which the decision from which the appeal was taken by the IRS, in the Eighth Circuit only, at this time. In our view, before this issue is settled in all circuits, the United States Supreme Court may have to define what Congress intended for the limits of review in a judicial appeal of an administrative finding in a Collection Due Process Appeal. See, in this connection, the case of Robinette v. Commissioner, reproduced below for those interested.
In all enforced tax collection matters we provide administrative interdiction through procedural and substantive submissions designed to accomplish the Client's objective to be heard. We believe in the practical nature of Agreements of Forebearance Pending Sale of Real Property. Clients often need time to so arrange their affairs that they will realize maximum arm's length value for real property assets in very serious, multiple year enforced compliance cases that may be beyond the scope of administrative relief in any context. In all events, we are current in our understanding of alternative defenses available to our clients in these matters.
