Government Shutdown and the IRS

There’s good news, and there’s bad news. The good news is the IRS is mostly shutdown along with the rest of the federal government. Of the roughly 89,000 IRS employees, more than 60,000 were sent home. This means the swarms of officers sent to harass our people are at home where they can’t do much harm. The bad news is that doesn’t mean any statutory deadline is suspended. For example, if the IRS mailed a Final Notice of Intent to Levy, or filed a Federal Tax Lien, you have a legally fixed period of time to respond. If you fail to respond within that time, you lose your appeal rights. The fact that the IRS is shut down does not extend a statutory deadline. You must still mail your response before the deadline. The postmark on your envelope will confirm that you mailed it on time, regardless of when the IRS actually processes the response. So while it will take some time to process the backlog of documents, you will not lose you appeal rights.