CASE STUDY
FOCUS: Trust, Estate & Taxation
Expertise In Tax Law And Ability To Justify Reasonable Circumstances Yields Sizeable Refund For Client
CHALLENGE
A client, who was routinely responsible about making timely estimated tax payments to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) had, however, failed to timely file the related returns for a number of years. We discovered that not only had the estimated payments been paid consistently during the course of those years, but also that the client had significantly overpaid the tax liabilities—and was due substantial refunds. Initial contact with the IRS to reconcile this matter revealed that the agency had determined that, due to delinquent filings, our client was not entitled to refunds of the overpayments.
OUR STRATEGY
The GCT team’s expertise in tax laws, long-standing professional relationship with the IRS, and personal knowledge of our long-time client’s recently diminishing faculties enabled us to prepare a carefully thought-out action plan. First, we demonstrated the client’s past compliance. Then, we established obvious good intent by showing how the client did indeed pay the estimated taxes for the time period in question. Finally, we conveyed in a respectful way that our client’s impaired memory was certainly a reasonable and understandable justification for this oversight of not timely filing returns.
RESULTS
In light of our insight into our client’s personal circumstances and because of our thorough understanding of tax laws, we were able to work collaboratively with the IRS to successfully negotiate disbursement of the full amount of the refunds due our client.