The Consequences Of Violating The Five-year Probationary Term After Getting An Offer In Compromise

The IRS offers a program called an Offer In Compromise (“OIC”). An OIC allows you to settle your tax debt for less than the full amount you owe. It may be a legitimate option if you can’t pay your full tax liability, or doing so creates a financial hardship.

With a properly completed application for an Offer In Compromise and required financial disclosures, the IRS will consider your ability to pay, income, expenses and asset equity. Only when it can be shown that the amount offered represents the most the IRS can expect to collect within a reasonable period of time will the IRS approve an OIC.

What people do not realize is that if your OIC is accepted, you are subject to certain terms over the next five years that if any term is violated the IRS reserves the right to revoke your OIC and thus put you back to where you originally started subtracting the payments made under the OIC and adding the accrual of more penalties and interest to the current date.

So it is important that anyone with an accepted OIC be aware of these terms and follow compliance:

1. You must comply with all provisions of the internal revenue laws, including requirements to timely file tax returns and timely pay taxes for the five year period beginning with the date of acceptance of the OIC and ending through the fifth year, including any extensions to file and pay. This is what I refer to as the “Five-year Probationary Period”.

2. Youmust promptly pay any liabilities assessed after acceptance of the OIC for tax years ending prior to acceptance of the OIC that were not otherwise identified in your application for an OIC.

So if your OIC included the Form 1040 liability for 2015 and later after your OIC was accepted you got audited for 2015 and that audit resulted in a liability, you would need to promptly pay that liability or else face a revocation of your OIC.

Likewise, if your OIC covered only individual income taxes and you were later assessed with unpaid employment taxes of a business, the failure to pay those new liabilities could result in a revocation of the OIC.

If the OIC was being submitted for joint tax debt, and one of the taxpayer-applicants does not comply with future obligations, only the non-compliant taxpayer will be in default of the OIC. This situation could occur where husband and wife who filed joint income tax returns and jointly secured an OIC later gets divorced and one party defaults on the OIC terms listed above.

An accepted OIC will not be defaulted solely due to the assessment of an individual shared responsibility payment made against another liable taxpayer. This situation could occur where two business owners have personal liability for unpaid employment taxes of the business and one of the owners defaults on the OIC terms listed above.

Now if you find that you cannot keep up with any of these terms, early intervention by your tax counsel with the IRS may still prevent your OIC from getting revoked. Once you receive a final determination by IRS that your OIC is revoked, any new OIC that may now be submitted will be based on your then current financial situation which if it has since improved would lead to an even higher Offer amount with no credit for what was paid under the prior OIC.