How do I get a Federal Tax Lien off of my credit report

If you’ve already had your federal tax lien released, then this process is really rather simple. You just get certified copies from your county clerk, your recorder or keeper of official records in your state. Every state has a different office that keeps your official records; it’s typically in your county government center or sometimes in the courthouse. You will get certified copies of these lien releases from your official record keeper, and you send them to the three major credit bureaus.

I’ve made it easy here. The three credit bureaus are Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, and here are the web addresses:

Equifax.com
Experian.com
TransUnion.com

I would imagine between 30 and 90 days after you’ve sent these releases to the credit bureaus, that they would be off of your credit report.

There are some important things that you need to know. If the lien is valid (meaning not expired yet), you’re not likely to get it off of your credit report because it’s there and it’s serving its function; that’s one of the reasons that the IRS files tax liens is they’re trying to make it hard on you (the taxpayer) to get around not paying your taxes. It might still be worthwhile disputing. You can go on those web addresses that I just gave you (Equifax, Experian and TransUnion) and you can go ahead and dispute the existence of the federal tax lien, particularly if you think it’s not you. For example, you have the same name as your father and it’s listed under your father’s social security number and for whatever reason, it’s gotten mixed up with you. Perfect example of why you would want to go ahead and dispute it.

If the lien is expired but your liability is still outstanding, you should still be able to get it off of your credit report. What do I mean by that? In a different video, I kind of explained it but let me go ahead and do that again.

In the third column from the left, about halfway down the page, there will be a heading that says “last re-filing date.” Now, if all of the last re-filing dates for that lien have elapsed, then that lien is unenforceable on its face. Actually, just above that, there is a blackout box that says “if the lien has not been re-filed 30 days after the last date for re-filing, then the lien is unenforceable.” Well, if that’s the situation, then you should be able to go ahead and get it off your credit report, as well, so you’re going to want to go ahead and dispute that as well.

If that’s the case, also, that it has expired by operation of time – just because basically the lien has grown unenforceable because they’ve not re-filed since the last re-filing date, you can also go ahead and request from the IRS that they release that lien and they should normally do that within 30 days.

That’s about all you need to know about how to get a federal tax lien released. There is no magic, there is no trick to getting a valid enforceable off of your credit report. Anybody that tells you that there is, is just trying to line their pockets with your money.