Guide library · IRC 6672 · Form 941
Payroll Tax Debt and Trust Fund Penalty Guides
Organized the way a case actually unfolds: how the debt starts, how the IRS investigates, how you defend, how you pay or settle, and what the IRS does to an operating business in the meantime.
Section 01 · 4 guides
Letter 1153 and Appeals
The 60-day notice, the protest, the assessment deadline, and what is left to argue after assessment.
Section 02 · 2 guides
The TFRP Investigation
How the Revenue Officer builds the file: interviews, bank records, third-party contacts and summonses.
Section 03 · 5 guides
Responsible Person Defenses
Responsibility and willfulness, the two elements the IRS must prove, and the people the law treats differently.
- Willfulness Under IRC 6672: What the IRS Must Prove and How to Push Back
- Bookkeepers, Controllers and Office Managers: When Non-Owners Face the TFRP
- New Owners, Departing Officers and the Quarters You Did Not Control
- Unpaid Nonprofit Board Members and the Trust Fund Recovery Penalty
- When Your Payroll Company Takes the Money and Does Not Pay the IRS
Section 04 · 7 guides
Payments, Refunds and Settlement
Designated payments, multiple responsible persons, contribution, refund suits, bonds, offers and spouses.
- Designating Payments to the Trust Fund Portion: The Letter That Protects Owners
- More Than One Responsible Person: Who Pays, and How the IRS Keeps Score
- You Paid the Trust Fund Penalty. Your Partner Did Not. The Right of Contribution
- Fighting an Assessed Trust Fund Penalty: Divisible Payments, Form 843 and Refund Suits
- The Section 6672(c) Bond: Pay a Little, Post Security, Stop the Levies
- Offers in Compromise on Trust Fund Taxes: Business Offers, Personal Offers and Doubt as to Liability
- Your Spouse and Your Trust Fund Recovery Penalty: What Reaches Home and What Does Not
Section 05 · 6 guides
Form 941 and Deposits
Where payroll tax debt comes from: deposit rules, deposit penalties, corrections, FUTA and entity rules.
- IRC 7501 and the Trust Fund: Why Withheld Taxes Were Never the Company's Money
- Monthly, Semiweekly or Next Day: The Payroll Tax Deposit Rules Behind Every Form 941 Debt
- The Failure-to-Deposit Penalty Under IRC 6656: Relief, Designation and First-Time Abatement
- Form 941-X: Fixing Payroll Tax Errors Before They Become Payroll Tax Debt
- Form 940 and FUTA Debt: The Payroll Tax That Is Not a Trust Fund Tax
- Single-Member LLCs and Payroll Tax: Disregarded for Income Tax, Not for Form 941
Section 06 · 6 guides
Business Levies and Enforcement
What the IRS does to an operating business that owes payroll taxes, and how to get ahead of it.
- When the IRS Levies Your Customers: Accounts Receivable Levies for Payroll Tax Debt
- Pyramiding: What Happens When a Business Keeps Adding New Payroll Tax Debt
- Letter 903 and Section 7512: The IRS's Last Warnings Before Injunctions
- Paying Old Payroll Taxes Over Time: Simple Payment Plans (Business Trust Fund) and Larger Agreements
- Closing the Doors Does Not Close the Case: Shutting Down a Business With Payroll Tax Debt
- When You Fund Someone Else's Payroll: Lender, Surety and Contractor Liability Under IRC 3505
Quick reads
Short Overviews
Brief summaries from the original GetIRSHelp.biz library. Each one points to the in-depth guides above.
- Trust Fund Recovery Penalty for Businesses
- Responsible Person Determination in TFRP Cases
- IRS Trust Fund Investigation Process
- Payroll Tax Liability: Complete Guide
- Form 941 Delinquency Resolution
- When a Revenue Officer Visits Your Business
- Business Levy Defense Strategies
- How IRS Liens Affect Your Business
- Employment Tax Compliance Requirements
- Business Installment Agreements
- Business Offer in Compromise
- Business Penalty Abatement Strategies
- Business CNC Status: When You Cannot Pay
- Worker Classification Disputes with the IRS
- S-Corp Payroll Tax Issues
- Construction Industry Tax Problems
- Business IRS Audit Defense
- Business Bankruptcy and Tax Debt Strategy
- Sales Tax vs. Income Tax: IRS Jurisdiction
- Business Estimated Tax Penalty Avoidance
- Partnership Tax Audit Rules Under BBA
- Business Succession and Tax Compliance