Steve Klitzner is interviewed on the “It’s All Legal” radio segment.
Listen to this interview – MP3
Host: Good Morning. This is your host, Brian Glick and you’re listening to It’s All Legal, an informative legal show on WBZT.
Glad you could join us this morning. I’m joined by Attorney Steve Klitzner from Hollywood, Florida. Good morning, Steve.
Steve Klitzner: How you doing Brian?
Host: Steve, what are we going to be talking about this morning with the listeners?
Steve Klitzner: We’re going to be talking about how listeners with IRS problems can solve their problems. But I you know I’m close to Hollywood. You mentioned I was from Hollywood. I’m actually more in the Aventura area, on the other side of the Dade-Broward line.
Host: All right, well tell the listeners a little bit about your background.
Steve Klitzner: Well, what I do, my specialty is resolving IRS problems. I represent tax payers well all over the country and all over the state, but I try to concentrate on the South Florida area: Martin County, Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, and Monroe County.
I write a monthly article for the Aventura News here in Aventura. And I spend all of my time working on cases where taxpayers have problems. We do audits. We represent taxpayers who haven’t filed returns, businesses with payroll taxes, individuals, collections, offers in compromise, installment plans, innocent spouse, liens, levies, the whole 9 yards.
Host: And Steve, you said you were in Aventura. What’s a phone number or a website they can contact you at?
Steve Klitzner: It’s 305-682-1118 or the 800 number 800-219-1118 and the website’s www.floridataxsolvers.com.
Host: All right, well let’s get into the subject matter. A few weeks ago I briefly informed the listeners about what offers in compromises are and the successfulness of them. I’d like to get into that in a little bit more detail. How, what is an offer in compromise and when is it utilized?
Steve Klitzner: Well, offers in compromise are very misunderstand unfortunately. And I think the reason is, is that you have some of these national companies who aren’t even owned by attorneys who advertise on TV and the radio that they’re going to solve problems for what they say is pennies on the dollar. They’re talking about an offer in compromise, but what they don’t tell you is that not everybody qualifies for an offer in compromise. In fact, the IRS only accepts a little more than 20% of the offers made. The bottom line to it, the formula to it is, is you have to show the IRS that they will not collect the money from you and that they should take what you can offer them. The formula basically is you have to offer all of your cash and investments, 80% of the assets, if you own a home, 80% of the home minus what you owe on the home and there’s also a formula based on how much money you have left over at the end of every month and then there’s a multiplier to that.
What some folks don’t understand is if you owe the IRS say $25,000, if you say hey listen, would you take $20,000 and leave me alone, the answer’s going to be well, thank you for the $25,000, when are we going to get the other $5,000? If you want us to take less than what we owe, you have to prove to us we’re not going to be able to get that from you. It’s very difficult but we’ve been very successful with it because the key to the offer in compromise is not just putting together a bunch of papers and shipping them out to the IRS. It’s manicuring them, tweaking them, putting them in the right order so that the IRS will understand that the person is never going to be able to pay the whole debt.
Host: Now Steve, let me ask you this. What is your typical client? I would imagine that people who are on salary who have with holdings taken out and then file their returns timely in April are not your typical client. What is mostly the people that come see you, what are their problems?
Steve Klitzner: There’s such a wide range but a big percentage of clients are 1099 folks, people that are real estate agents – they work on commission, stockbrokers, mortgage brokers and these people, what happens to them is this: Taxes aren’t being taken out.
You’re supposed to make estimated quarterly payments but when it comes to time to make the estimated quarterly payments often times they’re short and we see this with businesses also with payroll taxes. If you have to pay your bills and you don’t pay the electric bill, the phone bill, they’re going to shut you off. A lot of people just choose and wrongfully so in the long run not to pay the IRS. What ends up happening with them is one period goes by, then two, a year, then two years and before they know it they’re in so deep they don’t know how to get out. The IRS doesn’t really give you any idea how to get out of it once you’re in it. A lot of times these people just basically stay underground for years until the IRS contacts them and starts to levy on their wages, grabs their wages, grabs their bank account.
Host: All right Steve, we’re going to go to a break. Just want to let the listeners. And we’ll have a few more questions for you. This is Brian Glick. You’re listening to It’s All Legal. You can reach me at 1-866-874-2529 with your legal questions.
Host: Welcome back, I’m your host Brian Glick. It’s All Legal is the show. I’m with Attorney Steve Klitzner from Aventura, Florida. We are discussing tax liens, tax problems and the IRS. Steve, welcome back.
Steve Klitzner: Thank you.
Host: Hey, a thought on the break, how easy is it to deal with the IRS? What type of people are they? How conciliatory are they in your experience?
Steve Klitzner: Well, you know, a lot of folks were talking about just a few years ago about a kinder, gentler IRS. Those days are gone. This year the IRS may very well break their old records of most levies, most liens, most criminal prosecutions, most seizures. It’s very difficult for a lay person to deal with the IRS and often, what a person does when they get a letter, they call one of these national companies I’ve mentioned before and instead of speaking to a lawyer, they’re speaking to a commissioned sales person. They’re really not getting the right information. I think the most important thing is, if you have a problem, or if you get a letter from the IRS, contact a qualified tax professional.
Now one of the things that I can do that I really enjoy doing is actually meeting with my clients. Sometimes you know I have people driving in from all over the state, but sometimes it’s a little far. We talk on the telephone, we communicate with email, but I think it’s important to actually meet with a professional that’s going to handle your case so you can get a relationship with that person, explain your problems to that person and help them go away because the one sure thing about IRS problems is they don’t go away by themselves. Don’t ignore them.
Host: Now, what type of things can the IRS do to a person? What can they take?
Steve Klitzner: Well, their favorite thing and the easiest is to grab a bank account. Now they can’t just do this out of the blue. There’s a series of letters.
Host: Well, how do they know where there’s a bank? How do they know where your bank is?
Steve Klitzner: Very often people call the IRS to try to ask them questions and when they call, the first thing the person says before they get any other information is where do you bank, where do you work? And they get all your information. They’re just building a file basically so they can do collection. They’ll grab wages and they take virtually–If you’re a single person, they’ll leave you $157 a week if they levy on your wages so you have to be very careful when you get notices from them that you properly respond to them or have someone that knows that they’re doing respond to them. These levies I was talking about are to get the taxpayers attention and they work. You know, one thing though Brian–
Host: What do you mean like putting a levy on your home? Can they do that?
Steve Klitzner: Well, that’s a lien. A lien is a public notice to the world that you owe the IRS money. That attaches to your property so that if you try to sell it or refinance it, the IRS gets their money first. The levy is the actual seizing of wages or seizing of a bank account. What I was going to tell you is that there’s a lot of people come to me, and they’ve lost sleep at night and their ashamed, and they’re very upset, it’s a very personal thing and they think that they’re alone. I would say that 99% of my clients are good, honest hardworking people who would never dream of breaking the law. They just for whatever reason, fell behind with the IRS. They don’t know how to get out of it. So there’s no shame to having an IRS problem, but you have to take care of it.
Host: On that note Steve because we’re about to wrap up. Again I’m sure there’s plenty of listeners out there with questions for you and have these problems on their mind. Tell them again if they have a problem how they can contact you.
Steve Klitzner: My telephone number in the Aventura area 305-682-1118, 1-800-219-1118 is the toll free number or visit FloridaTaxSolvers.com.
Host: All right, Steve I appreciate you joining us. This is Brian Glick and you’ve listening to It’s All Legal. Call me at 866-874-2529 with your legal questions or you can email me directly lawboca@aol.com.
