Not sure where to start?
Start with what's happening right now.

IRS notices are written in a way that makes a routine reminder and a serious deadline look almost identical. The notice number in the corner tells you which one you're holding, and it matters — some carry a hard 30-day clock, others don't.

Don't ignore it, and don't panic about it until you know which it is.

This is a wage levy, and it's usually the point where people finally call. The IRS doesn't need a court order, and it can take substantially more than an ordinary creditor could.

It can generally be released — but releasing it means putting something else in its place, which is work that starts the moment you reach out.

A bank levy freezes the funds and holds them before they go to the IRS. There's a window in there, and it's short.

If this happened in the last few days, time genuinely matters.

Three years, ten years, more — we've seen all of it, and nobody here is going to react the way you're bracing for. This is the single most common situation in the practice.

You probably don't need to file every missing year. You likely can file without having your old records. And if the IRS has already filed returns on your behalf, the balance you're looking at is probably higher than what you'd actually owe.

There's more than one answer here, and which one fits depends on numbers rather than on how much you owe. A payment plan, a settlement, a hardship pause, penalty relief — sometimes a combination.

The right one comes out of your IRS transcripts and your actual financial position. Anyone who names it before seeing those is guessing.

A federal tax lien attaches to what you own and turns up in refinancing, selling, and business lending. It's public.

There are four different remedies — release, withdrawal, discharge and subordination — and they do different things. Which one applies depends on what you're trying to accomplish.

An audit letter isn't an accusation, and correspondence audits — the most common kind — are narrower than most people fear.

What determines the outcome is documentation and how the communication is handled. Both are easier with someone doing it for you.

Being on a joint return can make you liable for tax you had nothing to do with. There are three separate kinds of relief, plus a fourth option if it's your refund that was taken rather than a balance you're being pursued for.

One thing worth knowing early: a divorce decree that assigns the tax debt to your former spouse does not bind the IRS.

You're not the first person to call after this, and it's more common than the industry admits. Sometimes the case was never really worked. Sometimes an Offer in Compromise was filed that was never going to be accepted.

Your case can be picked up from where it stands. It helps to bring whatever paperwork you still have.