Katherine M. Johnson, CPA, CTRS• Georgetown, KY & Serving All 50 States
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    The NLTR Office · Reviewed by Katherine M. Johnson, CPA, CTRS

    Kentucky tax problems: what the state does differently

    If you owe money to the Kentucky Department of Revenue, almost everything you have read about the IRS is about a different agency with different deadlines — and the differences run in both directions.

    Call (800) 236-3741

    If you owe money to the Kentucky Department of Revenue, almost everything you have read about the IRS is about a different agency with different deadlines — and the differences run in both directions.

    Most people who call us about a Kentucky letter have already read three articles about the IRS. That reading is not wasted, but it is about a different agency. Kentucky runs its own collection process, on its own timetable, and a federal resolution does not touch a state balance. The single most useful thing to know today is that Kentucky's protections sit earlier in the process than the federal ones do.

    If you would rather just talk to someone: (800) 236-3741. Our phones are answered around the clock.

    Start with what you are holding

    If this is your situationStart here
    A Notice of Tax Due arrived and you think it is wrongKentucky Notice of Tax Due and the 60-day protest
    You owe and you cannot pay itKentucky payment plans and offers in settlement
    You want to know what the state can actually takeKentucky tax liens and levies
    You owe both the IRS and KentuckyWhich one to deal with first
    You hold a professional or occupational licenseKentucky license revocation for unpaid taxes
    You run a business and you are behind on sales taxThe sales tax you already collected
    You are an officer, member or manager of a business that owesKentucky personal liability
    You are worried the state will close the businessCan Kentucky shut my business down
    Your protest was deniedThe Kentucky Board of Tax Appeals
    You got a city or county occupational tax billKentucky occupational license tax
    You want the federal and state rules side by sideKentucky versus IRS collections

    Five things that surprise people

    • 1Kentucky's protest window is 60 days from the date on the notice, and it is the door everything else runs through. Miss it and the assessment becomes final, due and owing.
    • 2The same 60 days is when the department says a 25 percent cost-of-collection fee may be added. One deadline, two consequences.
    • 3Kentucky does not have a collection due process hearing. There is no state equivalent of the federal hearing you can request after a Final Notice of Intent to Levy. The state's review happens at the assessment stage instead.
    • 4The statutory notice before a Kentucky levy is ten days, given in person or sent by certified mail to your last known address. The federal notice of intent to levy is thirty.
    • 5A Kentucky tax debt can reach a professional license and a vehicle registration — and it can reach them where nothing is owed at all, if a required return is more than ninety days past due and the department has been in touch about it.

    What this section covers, and what it does not

    This section is about collection — what happens after a Kentucky balance exists and is not being paid, and what your options are at each stage. It covers the Department of Revenue's own taxes, and the city and county occupational taxes that the Department of Revenue does not administer at all.

    It does not cover property tax assessment appeals, which run through a different route entirely, and it does not cover routine Kentucky return preparation. If your question is which Kentucky forms to file for a normal year, this is the wrong section and you would be better served by an ordinary tax preparer.

    We have written it because the alternative was continuing to explain the same six things on the phone. Every page here cites the statute it relies on, with the date we last checked it, so that you can read the source yourself rather than taking our word for it.

    Where the office fits

    Next Level Tax Resolution is in Georgetown, Kentucky — 240 Blossom Park Drive, Suite 3, twenty minutes from Lexington and a short drive from Frankfort. Katherine M. Johnson is a CPA licensed in Kentucky and a Certified Tax Resolution Specialist.

    That geography is not decoration. The occupational-tax table on this site exists because the office deals with Scott County, Fayette County and Franklin County filings as a matter of routine. A firm advertising nationally has no reason to know that a worker inside Georgetown pays three separate occupational taxes to three separate bodies.

    Not every Kentucky problem needs a representative. Several of the pages here end by telling you how to handle the thing yourself, and one of them explains a stage of the appeal process where a CPA is not permitted to act for you at all. That is not modesty; it is what the rules say, and you should know it before you hire anybody.

    Download: Kentucky vs IRS — the two-column deadline sheet

    Every response window on both sides, on one page, with the statute beside each one and the date we last checked it. It is the sheet we keep beside the phone.

    We ask for a first name and an email address, because that is how the sheet reaches you. It also means we can send you the corrected version when a rate or a deadline changes, which on a sheet like this one is a matter of when rather than if. Unsubscribing is one click and we will not ring you because you downloaded something.

    Before you call, in case it is what is stopping you

    • The line is answered around the clock, and what answers it out of hours is an automated assistant that takes your details. A person calls back in office hours. We would rather tell you that than let you find it out at eleven at night.
    • You can ask a general question without giving your name. What Kentucky does in a given situation is not confidential information and you do not have to identify yourself to find it out.
    • Nothing is filed and nobody is contacted on your behalf without your written authorization. Talking to us does not put your name in front of the department.
    • You will know what a first conversation costs before it starts. What you will not get is a fee for the work quoted before anyone has looked at the account — a number given before that is a guess, and guesses are how a fair few people end up here in the first place.

    If you want someone to look at it

    Bring the letter, including the envelope. Kentucky deadlines run from the date printed on the notice, so the date matters more than most people expect — and opening the envelope does not start anything. The sixty days is already running either way.

    Federal notices are indexed separately: the IRS notices index. Kentucky state matters: state tax resolution · Kentucky local tax resolution.

    This section is general information about Kentucky tax law, not tax advice for your situation. Statutes change, and what applies to your account depends on facts specific to it.

    Next Level Tax Resolution is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of the Internal Revenue Service, the Kentucky Department of Revenue, or any other government agency. No outcome is promised or implied; what any program or provision means for you depends on your own account.

    The NLTR Office

    Reviewed by Katherine M. Johnson, CPA, CTRS · Published: September 2026 · Last reviewed: August 2026

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