Behind on Payroll Taxes? Fix It Before It Becomes Personal.
Missed 941 deposits do not stay a company problem. The IRS escalates on a schedule, and at the end of it the trust fund portion gets assessed against the owner individually. The earlier an attorney is involved, the more options are still on the table.
Attorney–Client PrivilegeRevenue Officer RepresentationNationwide Before the IRSNo Call Centers
Are You Personally Liable? — 60 Seconds
Five questions. Find out where you stand.
Step 1 of 5
What is happening with your business payroll taxes right now?
Approximately how much does the business owe in payroll taxes?
Has the IRS moved to assess this against you personally?
Is the business still operating?
What is your role in the business?
Reviewing your exposure now.
Enter your contact information to see where you stand. If a deadline is running, Tim will call you personally.
⚠ Personal Liability In Progress
The IRS is moving to collect from you personally.
Under IRC § 6672 the trust fund portion of your company's payroll tax can be assessed against you as an individual — and that assessment survives closing the business. Tim Wooten handles these cases personally and will speak with you today.
You still have room to act before this becomes personal.
Payroll tax cases get harder once a Revenue Officer is assigned and a Trust Fund Recovery Penalty is proposed. Acting now is what keeps the options open. Tim Wooten will review your quarters and tell you exactly what you are facing.
A deadline is running. Letter 1153 carries a limited window — generally 60 days from the date printed on the letter — to protest the proposed assessment to IRS Appeals. Once it closes, the penalty is assessed and your options narrow to collection remedies. Have the letter in hand when you call.
You do not have to own the company to be assessed. The IRS looks at who had authority over which bills got paid — check-signing authority, payroll approval, and control over disbursements. Non-owners often need representation independent of the company's, because the company's interests and yours may not line up.
Closing the business does not end this. The trust fund portion follows the responsible person individually, and it is generally not dischargeable in bankruptcy. A closed entity is still worth defending.
Review Complete
Our firm focuses on payroll tax matters over $10,000.
Below that, full attorney representation usually costs more than it saves. The IRS Taxpayer Advocate Service may be able to help at no cost: 1-877-777-4778. If the balance grows, more quarters come due, or a Revenue Officer is assigned — call us.
⏰ Payroll tax is the IRS's highest collection priority. Employment tax cases escalate to field collection faster than almost any other balance — and every additional quarter compounds the exposure. Call today.
The sequence
Where Are You On This Line?
Payroll tax enforcement is not random. It moves through defined stages, and each one closes doors the previous stage left open. Find your position — it determines what can still be done.
01
A deposit gets missed
Cash is tight, payroll has to clear, the deposit waits until next week. Failure-to-deposit penalties begin accruing immediately.
Every option open
02
Balance-due notices arrive
Automated collection notices for the delinquent quarters. Still machine-driven, still recoverable without much friction.
Best time to act
03
A Revenue Officer is assigned
The case leaves automated collection and goes to a human being with field authority who can levy, summons records, and visit unannounced.
Options narrowing
04
Form 4180 interview
The RO investigates who was responsible for the unpaid trust fund taxes. This interview builds the record for a personal assessment.
Personal exposure begins
05
Letter 1153 — proposed penalty
The IRS names you personally and proposes assessing the trust fund portion against you. A limited protest window opens, generally 60 days.
Deadline running
06
Assessed against you personally
Now a personal debt. Collectible from your accounts and wages, it survives closing the business, and it is generally not dischargeable in bankruptcy.
Hardest position
Timelines vary by case, territory, and Revenue Officer workload. The order is consistent; the speed is not. Waiting is the only move that reliably makes it worse.
First 30 days
What Changes When We Step In
Payroll tax representation is not a filing exercise. Here is what actually happens once you retain the firm.
📨
The IRS Contacts Us
Form 2848 is filed immediately. The Revenue Officer calls this office instead of walking into your business or calling your staff.
📊
We Pull Every Quarter
Full transcript analysis across all delinquent periods, separating trust fund from non-trust-fund so you know your real personal exposure.
✅
Get Current Going Forward
Current-quarter compliance is a precondition for nearly every resolution path. We set that up first, because nothing else works without it.
🛡️
Position Against the 4180
We evaluate the responsibility and willfulness factors before the IRS interviews anyone, so the record gets built with your defense already in view.
The distinction
Your Payroll Company Cannot Defend You
Payroll providers, bookkeepers, and CPAs are valuable — and they are also the people the IRS summonses for records when it builds a trust fund case. None of them carry attorney–client privilege. Your conversations with them are discoverable.
The national tax resolution companies advertising on radio and television are staffed by non-attorneys. They cannot represent you in Tax Court, they cannot litigate a refund suit, and they cannot offer privilege on the conversations where you explain exactly why the deposits were not made.
A Trust Fund Recovery Penalty case turns on facts about your own conduct — what you knew, what authority you had, which creditors you paid instead. That is a legal defense, and it should be built by a lawyer.
Tim Wooten has 25 years of federal tax litigation experience and handles every case in this firm personally.
More serious than an equivalent income tax balance. The IRS treats employment tax as a collection priority because the money was withheld from employees and held in trust — from the government's perspective it is not an unpaid bill, it is money that was already collected on its behalf and not turned over. Employment tax cases move to field collection faster, draw Revenue Officer assignment sooner, and carry the added feature that the trust fund portion can be shifted onto you personally. A few quarters behind is the point at which to get counsel involved, not the point at which to wait and see.
Sometimes, and for smaller balances that may be the sensible route. Two cautions. First, nearly every resolution path requires the business to be current on its ongoing deposits — if you are still missing current deposits, an agreement will default and you will be worse off. Second, dealing directly with a Revenue Officer means answering questions about who controlled payments, and those answers feed the trust fund investigation whether or not you realize it at the time.
It is possible but not the usual first move. The more common outcomes are levies on the operating account, levies served on your customers for receivables, and federal tax lien filings — each of which can be operationally fatal on its own without the IRS ever padlocking anything. A receivables levy in particular tends to damage customer relationships permanently. In genuinely egregious ongoing cases the government does have stronger tools, including injunctive relief.
This is exactly the conversation to have with an attorney rather than decide alone, because continuing to run payroll while not remitting the withheld taxes builds the willfulness record against you quarter by quarter. There are ways to structure operations that reduce ongoing exposure. Get advice before the next payroll run rather than after.
Common, and fixable, but it has to come first. The IRS may prepare substitute returns that overstate the liability, and unfiled quarters block access to resolution programs. We get the returns prepared and filed, then work the balances that result. Filing does not trigger anything that was not already coming.
It depends on the number of delinquent quarters, whether a Revenue Officer is already assigned, whether a trust fund investigation has begun, and how many individuals are exposed. Tim will give you a straight assessment of scope and fee on the first call — including telling you if the matter does not warrant attorney representation. We focus on payroll tax matters over $10,000.
Yes. Georgia Department of Revenue withholding problems usually travel with federal 941 delinquency, since the same cash shortfall causes both. We handle the state matter alongside the federal case for Georgia businesses. Federal representation before the IRS is available nationwide.
What is happening with your business payroll taxes right now?
Approximately how much does the business owe in payroll taxes?
Has the IRS moved to assess this against you personally?
Is the business still operating?
What is your role in the business?
Reviewing your exposure now.
Enter your contact information to see where you stand. If a deadline is running, Tim will call you personally.
⚠ Personal Liability In Progress
The IRS is moving to collect from you personally.
Under IRC § 6672 the trust fund portion of your company's payroll tax can be assessed against you as an individual — and that assessment survives closing the business. Tim Wooten handles these cases personally and will speak with you today.
You still have room to act before this becomes personal.
Payroll tax cases get harder once a Revenue Officer is assigned and a Trust Fund Recovery Penalty is proposed. Acting now is what keeps the options open. Tim Wooten will review your quarters and tell you exactly what you are facing.
A deadline is running. Letter 1153 carries a limited window — generally 60 days from the date printed on the letter — to protest the proposed assessment to IRS Appeals. Once it closes, the penalty is assessed and your options narrow to collection remedies. Have the letter in hand when you call.
You do not have to own the company to be assessed. The IRS looks at who had authority over which bills got paid — check-signing authority, payroll approval, and control over disbursements. Non-owners often need representation independent of the company's, because the company's interests and yours may not line up.
Closing the business does not end this. The trust fund portion follows the responsible person individually, and it is generally not dischargeable in bankruptcy. A closed entity is still worth defending.
Review Complete
Our firm focuses on payroll tax matters over $10,000.
Below that, full attorney representation usually costs more than it saves. The IRS Taxpayer Advocate Service may be able to help at no cost: 1-877-777-4778. If the balance grows, more quarters come due, or a Revenue Officer is assigned — call us.
