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If you filed a claim based on Kwong v. United States to recover or remove COVID-era penalties and interest, you may have recently received a letter from the IRS denying it or saying it won’t be processed. It’s natural to read that letter and think the matter is over. In many cases, though, the situation is more complicated, and how you respond may affect whether you keep your rights while the courts decide the issue.

If you owe the IRS, you may have heard that tax debt "goes away" after 10 years. There is some truth in that, but the full picture is more complicated. The IRS generally has 10 years from the date a tax is assessed to collect it. That deadline is called the Collection Statute Expiration Date, or CSED. Many common events can pause the clock, and some can extend it. Here's how it works in plain English.

Many taxpayers discover, sometimes years later, that they had a Louisiana tax obligation they never met. A business may have been selling into Louisiana without collecting sales tax. An out-of-state company may have had employees or operations in the state without filing corporate returns. An individual may have earned Louisiana income and never filed a state return.

Whatever the cause, the worry tends to be the same: what happens when the state finds out? The Louisiana Department of Revenue (LDR) offers a program designed for exactly this situation, the Voluntary Disclosure Agreement (VDA). For eligible taxpayers, it may offer a way to come into compliance on more favorable terms than waiting for the state to make the first move.

We are pleased to announce that two of our Attorneys were named to the 2027 Louisiana Super Lawyers list, and one has been named to the 2027 Louisiana Rising Stars List.  

If you owe the IRS, penalties can add up fast. The failure-to-file penalty alone can reach 25% of the unpaid tax, and the failure-to-pay penalty keeps growing every month the balance sits there. The good news is that many penalties can be removed, a process the IRS calls penalty abatement. The less welcome news is that interest is a different story. In most cases, the IRS cannot waive interest just because you had a good reason for paying late.

Below, we walk through the main types of penalty relief, explain why interest is usually off the table, and cover the narrow situations where interest relief is possible.

You've heard the radio ads. "Settle your IRS debt for pennies on the dollar under the IRS Fresh Start Program!" It sounds like a government amnesty: call a number, and your tax debt disappears.

The Fresh Start Initiative is real. It's also one of the most misunderstood (and most over-marketed) phrases in tax resolution. So let's talk about what it actually is, and then hand out a few spoiler alerts about what it is not.

When you owe the IRS and can't pay in full, the IRS decides what you can afford — and it does not use your real budget to do it. It uses a fixed set of allowable living expenses called the Collection Financial Standards. Whatever you earn above those allowances is treated as money available to pay the IRS.

That gap surprises many taxpayers. A family can be current on every bill, living modestly by local standards, and still be told it has hundreds of dollars a month "available" for the IRS. This post explains how the standards work, shows the actual figures for Lafayette, Louisiana, and explains why the IRS is not required to allow your full mortgage, private school tuition, or other expenses above the caps.

The IRS is urging every worker to do a "paycheck checkup" while there's still time left in 2026. With roughly two and a half months to go, now is the moment to find out whether enough federal tax is coming out of your pay. Discovering a shortfall in October is an inconvenience. Discovering it next April can be a crisis.

A troubling scam pattern has left many taxpayers not only robbed of their savings, but facing an unexpected tax bill on top of it. In this scheme, a fraudster contacts a victim claiming their bank account has been hacked or compromised, often invoking the FBI or another law enforcement agency to add urgency and legitimacy. The victim is told their money isn't safe where it is or will soon be inaccessible while law enforcement investigates the issue. The victim must "protect" his or her access to the funds, or the funds themselves, by transferring them into a new account the scammer controls.

Payroll tax problems are among the most serious issues a business can face with the IRS. Unlike income tax debt, which is generally owed by the business entity alone, unpaid payroll taxes can result in a penalty assessed directly against individuals — personally. That penalty is known as the Trust Fund Recovery Penalty (TFRP), and it can put a business owner's personal assets on the line even if the business itself is struggling, closed, or in bankruptcy.