A Birmingham, Alabama tax attorney at our firm can help you with abatement of IRS penalties.  Bomar & Phipps, LLC is a law firm with offices in Birmingham, Alabama and Atlanta, Georgia.

Penalty abatement is the forgiveness of penalties that have been added to a tax debt.

The most common basis for penalty abatement is reasonable case.  Reasonable cause relief is generally granted when the taxpayer exercises ordinary business care and prudence in determining their tax obligations but is unable to comply with those obligations.

This means something beyond your control has occurred that has caused you not to file or pay your taxes timely. 

Some things that typically give rise to abatement are:

1. Death of a close family member;
   
2. A serious illness;
   
3. Destruction or theft of records;
   
4. Inability to obtain records;
   
5. Major family disruption, such as  a divorce;
   
6. Incorrect advice from a tax expert;
   
7. Natural disasters;
   
8. Long period of unemployment;
   
9. Incorrect advice from the IRS;
   
10. Errors or mistakes, where there was "due diligence, ordinary business care and prudence." 

The Internal Revenue Manual states that any reason will be accepted as reasonable cause if it can be shown that the taxpayer exercised ordinary business care and prudence and, despite that, was still not able to comply with their tax obligations.

Contact us at (205) 789-6343 to speak with a tax attorney about penalty abatement.