Cindy
Las Vegas,#2Consumer Comment
Thu, July 19, 2007
I also found myself taken but I did not get most of what I paid for other than the preparation of Income Tax Returns. I got so fed up with never getting an answer from the staff at JK Harris that I finally contacted the IRS myself. I would recommend that you contact them, state that your offer is still pending and exactly how long are you required to wait for an answer if your offer will be accepted or not? Explain that you hired JK Harris and that you are afraid that they have dropped the ball since you have had no direct answer from the IRS. The offer may have been submitted but the IRS is not showing it. I filed tax returns for the years 2000 through 2005 all at the same time and the IRS is missing some of my returns even when I hand delivered them myself and had the returns time stamped which I did at my local IRS office all at the same time. If you can"t get the assistance you need directly from the IRS, you may qualify for some assistance through the Tax Payer Advocate because going through the normal channels would appear to not be working and you should get a somewhat timely response from the IRS. Keep in mind that the Tax Payer Advocate's report under the jurdistriction of Congress not the IRS although they have offices located in the same building as the IRS. They are very up to date and trained in dealing with these type of situtations and companies that promise to assist taxpayers that only take their money and do not provide the services they are contracted by the client to do. Be sure to make them aware that if any of the curent actions of the IRS are causing you a hardship! You must get this issue resolved otherwise you will just keep on increasing your tax debt to the IRS with the interest and penalites. Keep in mind that if you can get assistance from the Advocate be prepared to be able to submit any requested information that they may ask for within a ten day period. They do not give you much time. So get all your paperwork together before you contact them. They may request a copy of what if anything JK Harris did for you and because of the time lapsed they might ask for at least three months records of your current income, finiancial records and receipts for expenses. This is usually done on form 433-A or 433-B. If your current income has improved and they feel you can pay they they will put you on a payment plan. If your situtation is like mine where your income has fallen they will try to recomend that you be placed in an uncollectable status. Which stops their collection efforts but keeps that old tax bill still active earning interest and penalites. That's why you want to do the OIC and get it all behind you. Because if in the future your finances improve the IRS will be there to collect their money. If you are lucky you will not have to redo all the work JK Harris prepared on your behalf but you may have to start all over which is what I am having to do. Since JK Harris never submitted my Offer in Comprise nor did they prepare it. Since your offer was submitted then you might get lucky and be able to get someone working on it to give you an answer of either yes or no. You must get this resolved and make sure you do everything in your power to get the word out on just how bad of a company JK Harris is so that others are not taken for their hard earned money when they can least afford to pay for services not rendered!