First Time Penalty Abatement, Tax Penalty Relief!

First Time Penalty Abatement, Tax Penalty Relief!

If you have no history of tax problems with the IRS, such as back tax returns, but you incurred a penalty for failing to file a tax return, or failing to pay taxes on time, you may be in luck and be able to obtain tax penalty relief. The Internal Revenue Service will often lessen certain penalties for taxpayers with a history of good behavior. This tax penalty penalty relief (i.e. penalty abatement) is done by using an administrative waiver called the first-time penalty abatement request.

How this works

For individuals with this tax problem, this IRS tax penalty relief applies to two of the most common tax penalties: The failure to file (delinquency) penalty, and the failure to pay penalty. For businesses, this relief applies to the failure to deposit penalty for payroll taxes on the form 941. According to a government 2012 report, in 2010, about 1.65 million individual taxpayers qualified for this tax penalty relief, but only 8.8% of those taxpayers actually received the abatement of the tax penalty.  The reason for this number being so low is that in general terms taxpayers and tax professionals don’t readily know that this type of penalty relief exists when they analyze their tax situation. The IRS does not indicate this tax penalty relief option on its penalty-related notices since they do not want to encourage taxpayers to think they can avoid following the rules , so it is helpful to work with a tax attorney who knows how this tax penalty relief is applied to help you save money.