Help with income tax

**cadustin** · 11-21-2006, 09:06 PM

Is there anyone who can help me. I need to talk to someone about back taxes and doing my income taxes for the past 12 years. I want to get all caught up and cannot afford to pay someone a lot to help. I also cannot afford for the irs to levy my bank and paycheck as I don't make near enough to pay my bills.

**llworking** · 11-24-2006, 04:16 AM

Quoting cadustin

Is there anyone who can help me. I need to talk to someone about back taxes and doing my income taxes for the past 12 years. I want to get all caught up and cannot afford to pay someone a lot to help. I also cannot afford for the irs to levy my bank and paycheck as I don't make near enough to pay my bills.

The first thing that you are going to need is your records from which to do the tax returns.

You can ask the IRS for income transcripts (assuming you were employed or got a 1099) if you are missing any records. It will take a while to get any records that are pre-2000.

Once you have those, you can go to irs.gov and download forms and instructions for the years in question. It will take quite a bit of ink and paper for the instructions, so you also could read them/look up what you need online.

Otherwise, you can talk to some local tax professionals and see what they are willing to offer as far as price is concerned.

**olderbudwizer** · 11-26-2006, 10:12 AM

A suggestion or two, if you don't mind.

You might negotiate a bulk rate with a small tax preparer, or be prepared to do the back filings in several batches of 3-4 years each. If possible, a temporary 2nd job may help get them paid for.

But don't wait too long, as their busy season is getting near.

And, don't sweat the details of itemization right now. For some returns as old as you're indicating, your ability to document/justify certain deductions may no longer be viable. Take standard deductions or just those you can easily substantiate in order to expedite the filing of the back returns. Once they're 'in' you can consider ammending them to be more accurate - at least on the later ones which are within sol.

Good Luck. The main thing is to get the returns filed. Uncle Sammy won't even discuss options with you if there are any outstanding returns.