Legal Question in Tax Law in Virginia

Re: IRS lein on my home

Clearly you need some help here. The facts as you present them are both incomplete and confused, probably because you don't really understand what has been done by the IRS and because as someone not used to dealing with these issues you are in some cases using the wrong terminology. And given these problems with the facts, it is difficult to address all aspects of this. Nevertheless, here are some preliminary observations.

First, if the taxes are as old as you describe, it is quite possible that the statute of limitations on collection has run or will run in the near future. You need to determine when the assessments were made, and how long is left on the statute of limitations.

Second, the IRS can't encumber your house with a lien for your ex-husband's taxes. Unfortunately, the IRS computer sometimes wrongly associates a spouse's name with that of a delinquent taxpayer if in the past they filed a joint return. That may be what happened here. If so, the IRS would release the lien as to you. After all, the IRS has no basis on which to assert a lien against your property since you owe no tax. But do deal with this we would have to know when the house was bought, who bought it, and what funds were used. (In other words, if the house was transferred to you by your husband after the lien was filed against him, the lien would continue to encumber the property in your hands.) Again, we need to get the facts straight here.

Finally, the IRS can in fact levy your disability income, and may do so if you don't address this effectively. This could happen if the IRS has wrongly included your name on one or more assessments, which is the same problem noted above.

You need to find a good attorney or accountant familiar with IRS issues who can get the facts straight and seek to resolve this with the IRS. There are many ways to do this, but the facts at this point are not sufficiently clear, and there are just too many options to discuss them all here.

Much more information on these subjects is available on my firm's website at www.bjhaynes.com. Please let us know if we can assist you.