Michael O'Leary's (mikeo24) Blog

The IRS is back in the collection enforcement business. Since the middle of March 2020, when everything closed down due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the IRS paused aggressive collection actions against taxpayers who owed back taxes.THAT PAUSE IS OVER! Beginning on June 15th 2021, the IRS is back in ...

Most taxpayers fear an examination (commonly referred to as an audit) of their tax return.Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve written a blog giving you an “introduction” to the examination process, linked here, and also written about a taxpayer’s rights in an examination, linked here. My firm, By...

In a recent blog, I wrote about “The Taxpayer Bill of Rights” which you can link to here.Those are general rights available to all taxpayers but there are also a set of specific rights that apply to a taxpayer whose tax return is subject to an examination or “audit”. In some cases these rights ov...

Most taxpayers fear an examinations (commonly referred to as an audit) of their tax return. This essay will walk you through the basics and serve as an introduction to the topic of IRS examinations or “audits”.  My firm, By The Book Taxes, located in Norwalk, CT specializes in income tax preparat...

Generally speaking, taxpayers should never try and represent themselves before the IRS. It’s best to hire a professional (Enrolled Agent, CPA or Attorney) with tax representation knowledge and experience to represent you. They are trained in IRS process and procedure and will ensure that you make...

Believe it or not, taxpayers actually have rights when dealing with the IRS in an examination (commonly referred to as an audit) or collections. My firm, By The Book Taxes, located in Norwalk, CT specializes in income tax preparation for individuals, families and self-employed people. By The Book...

Payroll Tax Liability Resolution Strategies  Over the past few weeks, I’ve written about payroll tax liabilities for a business and how the IRS assesses these taxes and attempts to collect them from both the business and employees within the business that the IRS deems “responsible” for “collecti...

Payroll Tax Liability Collection from Individuals  In last week’s blog, here, I spoke about the actions that the IRS takes against a business to collect delinquent payroll taxes, known as “trust” taxes. What makes payroll taxes different than federal income tax is that the IRS had the ability to ...

Payroll Tax Assessment & Collection for Businesses   As I mentioned in last week’s blog, here, “Struggling or failing businesses often use these funds (payroll tax withheld from employees) to pay their employees and vendors in order to stay open instead of sending the money to the government. Uns...

Introduction to Payroll Tax Liabilities When I do presentations at local business networking meetings, I am frequently asked these questions by people with significant tax liabilities:           What are my chances of being audited?          Am I going to lose my house?          Could I go to jai...