When taxes go unpaid for too long, the IRS has the legal authority to seize your personal or business assets to satisfy the debt. Our levy services can help.

East Coast Tax Consulting Group is a Florida-based, CPA-led tax resolution firm that helps individuals and businesses resolve IRS levies. We’ll review your tax records, establish communication with the agency, and recommend strategies to stop or release asset seizures. Don’t let the IRS take your assets; contact us for help now.

If you owe unresolved tax debt, the IRS may use a levy to go after your real or personal property. Assets vulnerable to an IRS levy include:

• Bank accounts: The IRS instructs your financial institution to freeze and turn over funds in your accounts.
• Wages: The agency can order your employer to garnish your paycheck, sending the bulk of your pay to the agency and leaving you with a minimal amount for living expenses.
• Retirement accounts: 401(k) plans, IRAs, and thrift savings plans can be liquidated to pay off the debt.
• Social Security benefits: The government will automatically deduct a percentage of your monthly retirement payments with an automated levy, but may seize more with a manual levy.
• Physical property: Real estate, business equipment, inventory, vehicles, and other personal property are all assets the IRS can seize and auction off.

Anytime you owe unresolved taxes, your assets are at risk of a lien or levy. Proactively resolving your tax debt is the best way to protect your assets, and our services can help.

East Coast Tax Consulting helps individuals, independent contractors, and business owners facing escalating IRS enforcement. We have the right experience to intervene and advocate on your behalf, wherever you are in the process.

We represent clients facing these situations:

• Final Notice of Intent to Levy and Notice of Your Right to a Hearing.
• Wage garnishment notices.
• Bank account levy notifications
• Repeated IRS collection letters
• Threats of asset seizure

Levies are an advanced collection tactic. Before you see any of the above notices, you’ll generally receive a series of automated notices (e.g., CP501, CP503, or CP504), warning you that the IRS will take action if you don’t pay. Ignoring these early collection notices doesn’t put your assets immediately at risk, but once you get a final notice, the IRS has escalated your case to the asset seizure stage, meaning you have just 30 days to respond.

The IRS can’t legally seize most assets without warning, and it provides this warning by sending the “Final Notice of Intent to Levy and Notice of Your Right to a Hearing.” The clock starts when this notice arrives. You have only 30 days to appeal or resolve the debt before the IRS begins its collection actions.

Filing a Collection Due Process (CDP) hearing request forces the IRS to pause collection activity. The formal halt gives your licensed tax professional the chance to propose alternative solutions, challenge errors, or possibly dispute the liability.

Miss the 30-day window, and that right disappears. After that, the IRS can act without further notice.

Not every levy comes with a warning, and businesses, in particular, must pay attention:

• Disqualified employment levy: If your business requested a CDP hearing on employment taxes within the past two years, the IRS can bypass the warning period for subsequent quarters.
• Jeopardy levy: If the IRS believes assets are about to be moved, hidden, or transferred out of reach, it can seize them immediately. Hearings happen after the fact.
• Federal contractor levy: Contractors with outstanding tax debt can have federal payments intercepted automatically without the 30-day window.

If there’s any reason to think you fall into one of these categories, waiting to see what comes in the mail is a bad strategy. Contact us instead to talk about your specific case.

Our first priority is stopping active levies. If your bank account has already been frozen or your employer has already begun garnishing wages, we will immediately contact the IRS revenue officer or billing unit assigned to your case to halt further collection action. Everything else follows from there.

Once we’ve established contact and stabilized the situation, here’s how the process works:

1. We review your IRS records.
   We pull your official transcripts and account history to confirm exactly what you owe, when it was assessed, and whether any unfiled returns are keeping you from being in compliance. This information also indicates how much time the IRS has left to collect, a detail that will shape every resolution option.
2. We analyze your finances.
   The IRS uses national and local standards to calculate what you can realistically pay. We collect your income, monthly expenses, and asset information, and match it against those standards before making any recommendations.
3. We identify your best path forward.
   Based on your financial picture, we identify which resolution options you qualify for and explain what each one involves. Your options may include a payment plan, offer in compromise, currently not collectible status, or another approach.
4. We are your advocates.
   Once you become our client, we handle all communications with the IRS. We submit the paperwork, manage negotiations, and work to secure a formal levy release.

Lifting a levy is step one. What happens next depends on your financial situation and balance owed, and there’s rarely a one-size-fits-all answer.

Based on our financial analysis, we’ll help you request and set up the option that fits:

• IRS installment agreements: Structured monthly payments based on what you can realistically afford.
• Partial-pay installment agreements: Reduced monthly payments when full repayment isn’t feasible, with remaining debt potentially expiring at the end of the collection period.
• Currently Not Collectible (CNC) status: A formal IRS designation that pauses all collection activity when paying would create a genuine hardship.
• Offer in Compromise (OIC): A settlement that resolves your debt for less than the full amount owed, for qualifying taxpayers.

Our licensed tax professionals review your full financial picture before recommending anything. If you’re still within the appeals window, we’ll help you request a CDP hearing to appeal the levy, and if that 30-day deadline has passed, we’ll see if an equivalent hearing is right for your situation.

If any of the following apply to your business or personal finances, the window to protect yourself is narrow and growing shorter.

• Your bank account is frozen, preventing you from paying vendors, covering payroll, or clearing checks.
• Your employer received an IRS garnishment order, which reduces your paycheck drastically until the debt is resolved or a licensed tax professional intervenes.
• You received a Final Notice of Intent to Levy, which starts the 30-day window to file an appeal.
• An IRS revenue officer has visited your business. A field visit means your case was assigned to a local agent for manual collection, signaling an escalation from the automated notices.
• You have years of unfiled returns, which disqualified you from standard payment plans until you’re back in compliance.

East Coast Tax Consulting Group has in-depth experience in tax law, accounting, and IRS collection procedures. That knowledge matters when you’re dealing with complex levy negotiations.

Here are just some of the benefits taxpayers get from working with our firm:

• CPA-led resolution services
• Case-specific strategies designed around your needs
• Strong IRS negotiation
• Communication you can count on
• Help for both individual and business taxpayers

If the IRS has escalated to active enforcement, that’s what we’re built to help resolve. If you have unfiled returns or bookkeeping gaps, we handle those, too, so you’re positioned to get relief.

Most IRS levy situations are resolvable. The determining factors? How quickly you act, and which options your financial situation supports. The starting point to answer both questions is the same: a review of your IRS records and current finances.

A CPA from East Coast Tax Consulting Group can tell you exactly where you stand, explain what the IRS can (and can’t) do, and determine which resolution path makes the most sense for your specific situation. Contact us today to speak with a licensed professional, review your options, and take that first step in releasing or stopping a levy.