The arithmetic the IRS uses, applied to your numbers, with every step shown.
When the IRS decides what it can collect from you, it does not guess. It applies published standards for living expenses, discounts assets by fixed rules, and compares the result to what you owe. We run the same arithmetic and let you see it.
1. Start with the notice
The code in the top-right corner of an IRS letter tells us where you are in the process and how much time you have. You can type it, photograph it, or pick it from a list. If you photograph it, the reading happens in your own browser; the image is not uploaded.
2. A quick check before the long form
Many balances qualify for a payment plan without any financial disclosure at all. We check the two fast tracks first, using the split between tax, penalties and interest, because one of them looks at the tax alone. If one applies, you can stop there.
3. Your income, expenses and what you own
Each expense you enter is compared to the IRS Collection Financial Standard for your county and household size. Some categories are allowed at the standard regardless of what you spend; some at the lower of your actual and the standard; some in full. Assets are discounted to quick-sale value and reduced by the exemptions the IRS applies. You do not need to know any of these rules; the page tells you which applied and why.
4. Every option, side by side
Guaranteed and streamlined payment plans, a plan based on your budget, a partial-payment plan, currently-not-collectible status, and an offer in compromise. For each: whether the published criteria appear met on your figures, what it would cost a month, how long it would run, and what it requires. Options that are not on the table say why.
5. Touch any figure to see where it came from
Every number traces to something you entered, a published IRS table with its lookup key, or a rule constant, through the formula that combined them, with the IRS Manual or Internal Revenue Code section it rests on. That is what we mean by transparent.
What we deliberately do not do
- We do not give advice. Software can apply published criteria to your figures and show the comparison. Choosing among the options for you, deciding what to offer, or judging whether an assessment should be challenged is professional judgment, and only a licensed professional may do it.
- We do not act for you with the IRS. Nothing is filed or sent from this site. You remain the person the IRS deals with.
- We do not promise outcomes. The IRS recomputes everything from documents it verifies and frequently reaches a different number. Anyone who guarantees a result is telling you something they cannot know.
- We do not hide the limits. Every results page lists what the calculation leaves out and which way each omission moves your numbers. Where a rule constant has not yet been confirmed by a licensed professional, the page says so, and nothing is sold on it.
- We do not sell by phone. By policy. Everything is on the site, in writing, where you can read it twice.