One step forward, two steps back

[Quixote]

Posted by danama.1 at losthorizons:

The IRS has "asked" me (thru the Taxpayer s Advocate office) to fill out a Form 443-A and send it in before they will release a levy on my wife. This is a financial statement. Is there a way to refuse this legally (this is not a request for legal advice, but a request for opinions on this if anyone has seen anything that my be relevant)

danama.1 (or his wife) had a moment of lucidity and contacted the Taxpayer Advocate to seek help in releasing a levy on his wife's wages. (I am assuming that the levy is not actually on his wife, but rather on her wages.) His case advocate, seeking to show that the levy is causing him and his family financial hardship, has asked him to provide lists of what is coming in and what is going out to demonstrate to Collections that, with the levy in place, the latter is greater than the former. danama.1, lapsing once more into CTC mode, wonders if he can legally refuse to help TAS help him. I have no doubt that the brain trust at LH will, after considerable discussion, determine that he can.

[.]

So, what does the IRM have to say (if anything) about how many times a moron is allowed to bite the helping hand extended to him before he's told that there's nothing further to talk about?

[The Observer]

To bite the helping hand extended to him before he's told that there's nothing further to talk about?

The IRM doesn't say much about how many bites at the apple the taxpayer gets before IRS employees put the hammer down. Obviously the emphasis is on trying to work with the taxpayer in providing reasonable deadlines, minimizing documentation requests and the like. The IRS' main concern is to resolve the issue as quickly as possible; in this particular case, the Advocate's office is looking to see if a hardship exists that would allow them to intervene and request that the levy be lifted.

The real place where taxpayers can delay and stall is through the Collection Due Process. I have posted a number of court cases to the threads here where TPs have taken their baseless claims all the way to appeals court simply trying to delay a levy from being issued. And this is after the the revenue officer, their manager, settlement officer and their manager and the district court have had to keep reconsidering the frivolous arguments.