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Call local licensed lawyer Travis Watkins in Oklahoma City at 405-607-1192 for help in asking the IRS to remove your penalties and associated interest for good.

Back in the good old days before massive deficits, the IRS used to charge penalties and interest as a slap on the wrist to remind you of your civic duty to file and pay your taxes on time. Now, penalties and interest are wielded as a weapon to chok you into submission. However, the IRS will abate (forgive) penalties and the interest associated with those penalties, if you can show what the IRS calls "reasonable cause" for doing so.

Think about the many reasons why you could not file or pay off your taxes when they were due. That list may include one or more of the following:

These are all "reasonable causes." More than likely, there was some legitimate reason that you could not file or pay. Don't minimize your reasons. Just list them out and expand upon them with the facts of what was going on in your life at the time of each failure to file or pay. You just have to convince one IRS examiner to buy into your story, and you may be able to do away with all the penalties and interest that have been haunting you. Recent data shows that penalty abatement requests have a 50-50 success rate. So, you really have nothing to lose.

Here is what you need to do. List out the tax years that you failed to file or pay. Then, match up those years chronologically with the events going on in your life which caused you to fail to file and/or pay. Lengthy narratives are unnecessary, and probably won't be read by the examiner anyway. Keep the tone of your letter polite and genuine and convincing arguments and the data that supports those arguments and attach them. Make a copy of your letter, and mail it to your local IRS office or the service center in your area.

The IRS is notorious for losing these letters in the shuffle. If you have not heard from them in 60 days, do another letter telling them that you would like to have an answer and attach the original letter pointing out to them when you mailed it. If your request is denied, write them again and tell them that you would like your request to be reconsidered or appealed.