Before you hire anyone for an IRS problem.
Five things to check first. They take about fifteen minutes, they’re all free, and any honest firm will pass all five without blinking.
01Check 1 of 5
Verify the license, yourself
Only three kinds of people can negotiate with the IRS on your behalf: an attorney, a CPA, or an Enrolled Agent. Ask for the full name and credential of the person who would actually represent you, then look them up in the IRS’s own directory at irs.treasury.gov/rpo. Takes two minutes.
If the answer is “our tax professionals” with no name attached, that’s an answer too.
02Check 2 of 5
Get the total price in writing, before you pay anything
Not a monthly figure. Not “phase one.” The total, in writing, for named work. A firm that knows what your case needs can tell you what the whole thing costs.
If the price only exists on the phone, that’s by design: a phone quote can’t be compared with anyone else’s, and comparison is exactly what it’s avoiding.
03Check 3 of 5
Ask exactly what gets filed, and when
A real case plan names real steps: an authorization (Form 2848) in the first days, a compliance check and your records pulled in the first weeks, then a specific resolution, a payment arrangement, a hardship status, or an offer, filed by a date someone will say out loud.
“We’ll negotiate with the IRS for you” is not a plan. It’s a sentence.
04Check 4 of 5
Know what an investigation fee actually buys
Many firms charge a few hundred dollars up front, often non-refundable, for an “investigation” or “discovery” phase. Here is what that phase is: pulling your IRS transcripts and reading them. The pull itself is something a licensed person does in minutes, and something you can do yourself for free at irs.gov/account.
Reading the record correctly does take skill. But you should know you’re paying for the reading, not the pulling, and you should know what happens to that money if you don’t continue.
05Check 5 of 5
Know that the free path exists, and when it's enough
The IRS runs its own payment plans, online, free to set up. For smaller balances with all returns filed, that is often genuinely all you need, and any firm quoting you thousands for it is charging you for a form.
For larger or messier cases the calculus changes, but the principle doesn’t: an honest firm will tell you when you don’t need them.
That’s the checklist for judging anyone, us included. Whether you should hire anyone at all, and what a fair fix should cost if so, depends on your numbers. That part takes five questions:
No signup. No SSN. About two minutes.
If your case turns out to need licensed help, this ends with one short call: with the licensed Enrolled Agent himself, not a sales floor.
How the common business model works
The person on the sales call is almost never the licensed person. Their job is the close; the case gets handed backward afterward. Billing is commonly monthly while a case is “in progress,” which means a case that sits open keeps paying and a case that resolves stops. Nobody has to be dishonest for that incentive to slow your case down. It slows it down anyway.
None of this means every firm is bad. It means the structure rewards silence, and you should pick a firm whose structure doesn’t.
Seven questions to bring to any sales call
- 1.Who, by name and credential, will represent me?
- 2.What is the total price, in writing, for the whole case?
- 3.What form gets filed first, and by when?
- 4.Is the upfront fee refundable if you decline my case?
- 5.What happens in month one? Month two?
- 6.How will I see progress without calling you?
- 7.When would you tell me I don't need you?