The IRS Fresh Start Program has been available to Americans for just under a decade, yet due to tight constraints over who would be considered eligible for relief, many were initially rejected from the program.
Throughout its lifetime, the IRS Fresh Start Program underwent continuous reforms to increasingly loosen restrictions and make the program accessible to a much wider range of Americans.
Want to know if you’re eligible for relief? Take our short quiz now and see if you qualify today!
What Does the Fresh Start Program Offer?
The IRS Fresh Start Program allows taxpayers to pay off their debt in two ways:
- Installment Agreement – The IRS grants the taxpayer the ability to pay off their debt in monthly installments. During this time, compounded daily interest is still added to the overall balance until the entirety of the debt is repaid.
- Offer in Compromise – The IRS and taxpayer agree on a new balance amount. This new balance is often significantly lower than the original amount owed, and the taxpayer has five months from the date the Offer in Compromise is issued to pay the amount in full.
Most taxpayers hope to be able to qualify for an Offer in Compromise. When people claim that they settled their IRS debt for “pennies on the dollar,” they are referring to an Offer in Compromise.
The Offer in Compromise was notoriously difficult to qualify for, but recent expansions of the Fresh Start Program now allow more people than ever to qualify for an Offer in Compromise.
In fact, the IRS accepts nearly half of all offers submitted and that percentage continues to rise every year.
How to Qualify
Tax relief companies are an excellent resource to utilize to check your eligibility for the Fresh Start Program because they are able to conduct a full financial and tax investigation of your profile.
The IRS looks at each case individually when qualifying taxpayers into their program, so you will not find an absolute check-list of qualifiers that you must reach.
Instead, the best way to qualify into the Fresh Start Program is to prove a financial hardship. This means that you must prove that paying your IRS debt will place you into a financial hardship that could hinder your ability to keep a roof over your head or food in your mouth.
Of course, this is all relatively subjective. The IRS might claim that you need far less money per month to survive than you might actually need.
To ensure that you are able to both prove your financial hardship and obtain the best possible settlement for your situation, many taxpayers turn to tax relief professionals to build their case and negotiate with the IRS on their behalf.
Interested in seeing if you qualify the IRS Fresh Start Program? Click here a take a brief survey.
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