{"id":26524,"date":"2017-04-17T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2017-04-17T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/serious-irs-take-unfiled-taxes\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T15:21:49","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T15:21:49","slug":"serious-irs-take-unfiled-taxes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/serious-irs-take-unfiled-taxes\/","title":{"rendered":"How serious does the IRS take unfiled taxes?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#039;m Darrin Mish. For 32 years I&#039;ve practiced federal tax litigation \u2014 routine audits, Tax Court cases, and everything in between. If you&#039;re facing an IRS issue, here&#039;s what you need to know first.<\/p>\n<div class=\"text-content\">\n<p>Many of my clients don&#8217;t realize how serious the IRS takes <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/tag\/unfiled-tax-returns\/\">unfiled taxes<\/a><\/strong> until the consequences start to pile up. Not filing your taxes in time can lead to a variety of problems including collection actions and penalties. By the time taxpayers contact me, they&#8217;re usually in financial distress. They also are facing severe consequences\u00a0and looking for legal solutions to their tax situation.<\/p>\n<p><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-26542\" src=\"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/How-serious-does-the-IRS-take-unfiled-taxes.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"600\" height=\"314\" \/><\/p>\n<h2>Huge Financial Penalties<\/h2>\n<p>The severity of consequences varies from one situation to another and is dependent upon a taxpayers situation.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/irspenaltiesandwhatcanbedone\/\"><strong>IRS penalties<\/strong><\/a> are much more significant for those that never filed taxes versus those that have unpaid taxes. In fact, the penalty for not filing taxes is 10X greater than just having unpaid taxes.<\/p>\n<p>If taxes remain unfiled, the IRS may use a substitute tax return to determine liability. In most situations, a substitute tax return will result in higher taxes. The higher amount owed is because deductions are not taken into consideration. The greater the assessed tax liability; the greater a client&#8217;s tax liability will be.<\/p>\n<h2>Methods Used by Taking Authorities to Collect Tax<\/h2>\n<p>Once the IRS has determined your tax liability, they will begin to take steps to collect unpaid tax. It&#8217;s important to remember a person&#8217;s tax problems will never go away. The IRS will continue to try and\u00a0collect unfiled or unpaid taxes until you pay in full. Methods used by the tax authority include:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Tax lien<\/li>\n<li>Wage garnishment<\/li>\n<li>Bank levy<\/li>\n<li>Property seizure<\/li>\n<li>Jail time<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>If you are facing\u00a0tax consequences, a <a href=\"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/\">tax attorney<\/a> can help. Attorneys can negotiate with the IRS on your behalf. When hiring\u00a0a lawyer to help settle your tax penalties, you can hope to get the best solution possible. The end goal is to decrease your financial hardships and help you avoid more serious tax penalties.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#039;m Darrin Mish. For 32 years I&#039;ve practiced federal tax litigation \u2014 routine audits, Tax Court cases, and everything in between. If you&#039;re facing an IRS issue, here&#039;s what you need to know first. Many of my clients don&#8217;t realize how serious the IRS takes unfiled taxes until the consequences start to pile up. Not [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","footnotes":""},"categories":[602],"tags":[152],"class_list":["post-26524","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-irs-faq","tag-unfiled-tax-returns"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26524","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=26524"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26524\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26525,"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26524\/revisions\/26525"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=26524"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=26524"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/getirshelp.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=26524"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}