Do you worry about the IRS taking collection action on back taxes?

The Final Notice 

The IRS sends you a number of notices, but the final document is called "Final Notice of Intent to Levy and Your Right to an Appeal".

By law, the IRS can't take collection action (like levies, wage garnishment or other property seizures) until they've given you this final Notice of Intent to levy.

There is good news.

Typically you're going to get five notices about a month apart. Businesses will get four notices, with a caveat: if the IRS thinks the property is in jeopardy, they can circumvent that. Most of the time though, that's what that's what you're looking at. Four notices for personal, five for businesses.

I go into detail about these five notices in this blog post, but generally speaking here's what they say.

The first notice says "Hey, you owe us money" and the second one is a reminder. The third one gets a little bit more aggressive. The fourth one is also called Notice of Intent to levy, but it doesn't tell you that you have the right to appeal.

The Fifth Notice

The final notice is "Notice of Intent to levy and your right to an appeal". And you'll also notice the difference because it comes with publications information and actually the form to follow for collection due process hearing request.

So that's when you get that last one, you have 30 days in which to file an appeal, or what we call a collection due process or equivalent hearing. And it by law, they have to stop if you file it 31 days after the notice. You cannot stop the levy legally but as a matter of practice will usually stop and you have a year for the second one. But to be safe if you want to make sure that you stop the IRS from actually letting your bank account garnishing your wages or other property seizures, you need to file it by the 30th day.