Radio Interview (July 29, 2025)

Listen to this interview – MP3

Host 00:00
to be prepared for tax season you need to be prepared for if and when the IRS contacts you if you were behind on your taxes haven’t filed etc and for that we turn to the expertise of Steven Klitzner tax attorney the law office of Steven Klitzner Florida tax solvers.com good morning to you Steven.

Steven 00:20
And good morning to you, Michael.

Host 00:22
Thank you. You know, so actually lobster mini season is one of the big topics. I had mentioned, you know, budget cuts and financial uncertainty for a lot of people. That’s one issue going on, but the more immediate future even is the lobster mini season in Florida.

And the Florida Keys are a popular destination, as you know, for that. I bring it up because we keep getting all of these notices from our friends at the sheriff’s office and FWC of people getting caught trying to harvest lobster early. And they’re trying to do things that they think that maybe they won’t get noticed or might get away with. And then when they’re caught, they say, I didn’t know. I didn’t know what the regulations and what was expected of me. That is not a defense when you’re going lobstering out of season. That is also not a defense with the IRS. They don’t care if you didn’t know or didn’t or did. They just care if you violated the law.

Steven 01:19
That’s really true, you know that yeah, the I was confused. I didn’t realize doesn’t work.

Yeah You know you some people come to me and they say my accountant was supposed to file the return my accountant Said he was going to file the return. He never did it and the IRS is like that’s not our problem It’s your job to do it. You need to know it. You need to do it Oh, and by the way, you also never paid the taxes So it’s very hard to delegate or blame somebody else and and just say, you know I that would be a heck of a defense if everyone just said I Taxes, I I didn’t know

Host 02:01
Yeah, ignorance is not a defense at all. So that is interesting.

So even if you have a certified public accountant, are they absolved from any liability? Or is there a negligence that could be, you know, used as any kind of defense or no?

Steven 02:17
Well, in theory, the taxpayer can sue the accountant, but they still owe the taxes. Really, all you can sue them for is the penalty you incurred for not filing it on time. And of course, it’d be very difficult to find a lawyer that’s going to take on that case for you, which is not gonna be a fortune in money. It’s usually cost prohibitive.

A lot of times people go to their accountant, and if the accountant does take some accountability, they work something out. The accountant might pay the penalty, or the accountant may say, I’ll do your returns for free for a few years or whatever it is. But more often than not, the accountant says, you didn’t tell me to file an extension. You didn’t give me the information to file the return. So it’s very difficult to blame that on somebody else.

Host 03:07
Yeah. Steven Klitzner with us, the law office of Steven Klitzner, tax attorney, floridataxsolvers.com to get your free consultation locally here, 305-682-1118, again, that’s 305-682-1118.

So we have mentioned budget cuts. There have been layoffs already or pending layoffs on the county level here, state level. Now, the state has their new chief financial officer who is saying he’s going to audit all of the counties, even some of the, you know, the cities as well. So they’re putting everything under a microscope. Taxpayers continue to be under a microscope with audits continuing even though there have been cutbacks in personnel at the IRS as well.

Steven 03:55
Right. Yeah, they cut back. The IRS was at around 102,000 employees, total employees. You know, that includes the maintenance people, the computer people, not necessarily everyone that deals with taxpayers. And now from 102,000, they’ve lost about 25%. They’re down to about 77,000.

And in the new bill, Congress has proposed an additional 40% cut in the budget for the IRS, not necessarily people, but another 40% down. So morale over there, very low. You know, I always picture the people at the IRS office every hour or so saying, incoming and hiding under their desks. So it’s just unbelievable. But they’re trying to make up for it with AI, with computers doing the work. And incredibly, we haven’t seen much of a drop off yet in audits and collection cases that may come, but they still seem to be cranking it as if everybody is there. It’s just amazing what they’re doing.

Host 05:11
Yeah, I guess automation AI maybe is helping them with that. But so we are not facing tax deadlines per se, unless you are on extension.

And if you’re on an extension, then you were supposed to pay your estimated taxes, right? But are the audits more prevalent during maybe the so-called off season, as opposed to right before tax deadlines?

Steven 05:38
Now we don’t see a whole lot of difference. It just depends on whose name is in the queue and when that auditor finishes a case and picks up the next case in the queue. So it just, you know, we never know. We see influxes here and there.

What we see with the IRS is we see kind of programs where suddenly they’re targeting more things than others. Like they’re targeting corporations where the owners aren’t taking a salary, which they’re required to do, or they’re targeting corporations that are treating employees like independent contractors and not paying their payroll taxes. But so it’s always changing over there. But the computer has been spitting out a lot of collection letters, a lot of levies are now coming out. And what they’re doing more than ever is they’re doing federal payment levies, meaning that if you get benefits or if you get money from the government in the way of social security, for instance, or if a business, a doctor’s office takes Medicare payments, they’re going after those government payments, which can be crippling, especially to a medical office where every single day the IRS is grabbing all of their Medicare and government payments.

Host 06:58
Again, Steven Klitzner, law office of Steven Klitzner tax attorney online at FloridaTaxSolvers.com to call the office directly. It’s 305-682-1118.

Now the big beautiful bill, no tax on tips and some other parameters are in that. But the law is always changing and regulations for taxes, whatever they may be, are always changing as well. It really is kind of hard to keep up.

Steven 07:29
Well, it is because the no-ticks-on-tax or the no-tax-on-tips and the no-tax-on-overtime, it’s not for everything, you know, and not for everyone. I can’t charge my clients $10 and take the rest of my fee and tips. And there are some limitations.

But the CPAs, the accountants, they’ll be on board, their computer software will be working and people know what they’re going to get. I think the one thing about the bill, like it or not, for specific items on it, from a tax standpoint for the individual, they’ll continue to get the tax breaks they got from the last time the tax laws were changed, there’ll be some more tax breaks. I think people will generally be paying somewhat less.

Host 08:21
interesting. So and one other thing that you mentioned, it just points to the complexity of the tax code and how people can, you know, through maybe not even ill intent fall into problems and get behind with taxes, etc.

You had mentioned the salaries are required by owners of businesses, and that is a universal truth, even if it’s like a silent partner, etc.

Steven 08:48
Well, no. If an individual, for instance, owns a company and he’s taking money, he’s taking distributions, then he is required or she is required to take a salary, to take a paycheck, to pay in taxes.

Someone who’s a silent partner, who’s not really working there, not making any money, isn’t required to do it. The requirement is that you are supposed to take in salary what you would pay someone to do the job you’re doing. I see. Okay.

Host 09:24
You can’t avoid payroll taxes by just taking a distribution or something like that.

Steven 09:29
The IRS doesn’t like it. They don’t like when no taxes are paid in.

Every business is a little different. Sometimes 50,000 is enough, 25,000, just depends on how much the business is making. There’s no minimum. Some people suggest half of what the income is. But for the most part, when we see someone at least taking, someone making a lot of money that can afford it taking $1,000 a week, that’s usually okay with the IRS. It’s the ones taking zero that create a huge problem. And I know 50 is not bad because the ones taking zero, they come in, they audit, they say you should be taking 100, 125 for this. And I can usually settle it for about a $50,000 salary, depending of course on the business.

Host 10:19
Very interesting. Well, there’s so many intricacies and each case is different, but you should not approach or deal with the IRS alone.

You need the qualified help of a practitioner such as Steven Klissner, the tax attorney, floridataxsolvers.com. And Steven, you’ve been practicing law for a number of years now. You have many different qualifications and what’s the word? Well, your name has been lauded statewide, nationally as well, even to the point of being appointed to that three-year term international, sorry, internal, what, Internal Revenue Service, IRS, that’s what it stands for, Advisory Council as well. So they turn to you for your advice to sometimes figure out how things are done. But there’s a number of different problems that people can fall into. Really, the key that we continue to harp on when you and I talk is don’t ignore the IRS. Bottom line, they are not going anywhere, even if there’s budget cutbacks.

Steven 11:24
Yeah, even if tariffs come through, tariffs can, in no way, take the place of the IRS. It may help a bit, to some degree, but there’s just not enough money there that’s going to replace the IRS.

Thank goodness. I’d have to become like a real lawyer and wants to do that. I like what I’m doing. Keep these guys in business. Write your congressman.

Host 11:48
You’d have to do more arguing in front of the U.S. Supreme Court as you have done once.

Steven 11:55
Well, yeah, but that was only an argument with my wife that had nothing to do with any of the justices at the Supreme Court.

Host 12:02
So what is the most common problem that you see come into your office from a taxpayer’s standpoint? Is it unfiled returns? That’s the biggest one?

Steven 12:15
Yeah. It’s the unfiled returns. At least probably 80% of the people that come to me have at least one unfiled return. But generally, it’s I haven’t filed my return in X number of years.

And I always tell them you only have to go back six years, not the eight or ten years that you haven’t filed. Some people come to me, I owe money from 2018, 17, 16, I haven’t filed since then. So, you know, they’re going to owe more money, plus we’ve got to deal with the past money. But the single most important thing that all of these folks have to do is starting now going forward, you got to get on track. You got to file and pay this year to, you know, 24 people are on extension. The very least, 2025, pay in, file it on time, pay it on time, stop the bleeding and we can deal with the past. I can’t deal with the past unless folks are dealing with the present and the future.

Host 13:18
Yeah, and the IRS has so many different tools at their disposal to collect. They’re a very effective collective agency and they can come after you for, you know, all of these, they really don’t want to hear either that I didn’t know about it or that I can’t pay it, they’ll find out what you can pay and that’s when, again, representation from your office comes in to try to minimize that as much as possible and make it, you know, reasonable and palatable for the taxpayer.

But they can even go to the extent of liens and levies. They can even take away your passport and prohibit your ability to travel abroad.

Steven 13:59
Yeah. They do have a lot of tools they can use. And I think the most important one, you know, the liens, that’s important. Even the passport certification is because you may not be able to renew your passport, but probably their biggest tool is that levy. When all of a sudden you wake up one morning and your bank account is frozen or your boss calls you in and says, yeah, we’ll be paying the IRS most of your salary this week. Those are the things you got to watch out for.

And you have to be careful too, because sometimes people trying to help themselves trigger these things, you know, they, you know, I have people all the time, I call them, I wrote to them, and what they’re doing, it’s all well and good, but it’s not the way to handle the problem. It’s not the way to take control of the problem. It’s basically giving the IRS a lot of times carte blanche to just do whatever they want to you.

Host 14:52
Indeed, and those tax liens, levies, etc., they’re not going to come out of the blue. You will have had a number of letters and other correspondence from the IRS itself before that happens. But again, getting ahead of it, and if you start getting a letter, assuming it’s legit, which the IRS will not call you, they’re going to send you a letter. And that’s the time when it is to call Steven Klitzner, or even before then, if you sense that you’re behind something may trigger the IRS taking some action, you need to assess your situation and call the Office of Steve Klitzner 305-682-1118 online floridataxsolvers.com. So Steven, I was talking about some of your accomplishments before. Can you explain what AVVO is for the layperson?

Steven 15:48
Yeah, Avvo is an attorney listing website, and I use it to find lawyers sometimes around the country if I don’t know anyone, but it’s a pretty good website that it has qualifications of lawyers, it has ratings of lawyers, it has testimonials for lawyers, and it’s really a good way to get started with finding someone that can help you in a certain area of law or in a certain area of the country.

Host 16:22
Yeah, you have a 10.0 rating by Avvo as well, which I assume is pretty much near the top of the scale.

Steven 16:30
It’s out of 100. No, no, no, it’s out of 10. It’s out of 10, yes.

Host 16:36
Well, congratulations. So if you were on TripAdvisor, you would get five stars or whatever as well.

Well, that’s true. Well, congratulations to you. That is a testament to how you treat your clients and how you handle solutions with the IRS and representing those clients for the best outcome possible. Again, it is Steven Klitzner, the law office of Steven Klitzner tax attorney, locally here, South Florida and the Florida Keys, 305-682-1118. And one of the best outcomes for the taxpayer in these situations is peace of mind, taking the IRS essentially off of your back and putting it squarely on the plate of Steven Klitzner. There really can’t be a better way to kind of extinguish or at least diminish that anxiety that comes with the IRS contacting the taxpayer.

Steven 17:34
Yeah, I agree 100% being proactive is good because when I get involved in the case, I make the decision how proactive we’re going to be, but it’s better I’m making the decision than the taxpayer. Yeah.

Host 17:47
Yeah, and it’s an informed decision. No doubt. So thank you for your time again Steven unless there’s anything else We should mention we’ll let you continue. I’m sure you’ve got people to get to

Steven 17:59
People to go places to see and all that stuff. Yes busy day as usual and You have yourself a great week, Michael

Host 18:08
Thank you, sir. Great to talk to you as always. We’ll talk again soon. Thanks. Take care. You too.

Steven Klitzner, tax attorney, law office of Steven Klitzner, Floridataxsolvers.com. Your free consultation and peace of mind is just a phone call away 305-682-1118. And we’re going to join Glenn Beck here in just a few moments. He’ll be getting us caught up on all of the events happening around the world. And they are ever changing. No doubt about it. Followed by Clay and Buck coming your way at noon here today. Three o’clock, Sean Hannity, it’s five o’clock and Drew Steele with Florida’s voice and plenty going on with Florida as well with the new chief financial officer already gearing up for audits that’ll be coming to a county and municipality near you. So keep that in mind as well. Six o’clock Mark Levin with expert analysis of the day’s happenings. Nine o’clock Jesse Kelly, coast to coast AM comes your way overnight. Don’t forget AUC with Dr. B. Dr. Bruce Boros comes your way Saturday mornings at nine o’clock exclusively on keys, talk 96 9 1 0 2 5, the talk of the keys. So everything to keep you engaged and informed. And speaking of that, there’s always local state national news updated every half hour as well as breaking news as soon as it happens and weather that can change on a moment’s that’s updated continually around the clock as well. All on keys, talk 96 9 1 0 2 5, the talk of the keys.

Thank you so much for listening and you have a wonderful day.