“Listen to Part I of a conference call about this process, then go to Part II”
OR

Read a conference call transcript here

The U.S. Supreme Court said in Thatcher v. Powell, 19 U.S. (6 Wheat.) 119 (1821) that no public officer can take any action affecting your property “…unless authorized so to do by express law, …and that the person invested with such a power, must pursue with precision the course prescribed by law, or his act is invalid…”

The United States Congressmen and Senators got tired of having their constituents come to their offices with complaints about the IRS. To get some relief they passed laws that embodied the principles enunciated in Thatcher v. Powell and those laws are in the United States Code at 26 U.S.C. § 7433:

a) In general If, in connection with any collection of Federal tax with respect to a taxpayer, any officer or employee of the Internal Revenue Service recklessly or intentionally, or by reason of negligence, disregards any provision of this title, or any regulation promulgated under this title, such taxpayer may bring a civil action for damages against the United States in a district court of the United States. Except as provided in section 7432, such civil action shall be the exclusive remedy for recovering damages resulting from such actions.

Under subsection (d)(1) of that section before you can bring suit you must have, “…exhausted the administrative remedies available to such plaintiff within the Internal Revenue Service.” 26 C.F.R. 301.7433-1(e) describes how to exhaust administrative remedies within the IRS:

An administrative claim for the lesser of $1,000,000 ($100,000 in the case of negligence) or actual, direct economic damages as defined in paragraph (b) of this section shall be sent in writing to the Area Director, Attn: Compliance Technical Support Manager of the area in which the taxpayer currently resides.

A court listed in its decision what must be included in that letter.

The importance of sending the above mentioned “administrative claim,” which I call a notice of intent to sue, is illustrated in my recent research done to upgrade this package. In my most recent research I found 47 district court and appellate cases that mentioned 26 U.S.C. § 7433. Of those, 22 were dismissed for failure of the plaintiff to obtain a waiver of sovereign immunity by sending in an “administrative claim.” Of the remaining 25 cases all but two were references to 26 U.S.C. § 7433 that were made by the court in passing. This caused me to conclude that the Compliance Technical Support Manager is doing something for those who send competent “administrative claims” that is keeping them from suing; i.e. releasing the levies.

If you have listened to the conference call above, or read the call transcript you already know that I think the Compliance Technical Support Manager’s job is to look those letters over and do what it takes to prevent a lawsuit. Based on the results, if you write an effective letter, I believe that this guy has the authority to call off the dogs! I am of the opinion that this will not work unless your letter sounds credible. The only way to do that is to sit and read all of the cases, statutes, sample letters and regs. This package is designed to make it easy for you to do that. It is important that each person do their research and make their letter sound as credible as possible because when the letter reaches Compliance Technical Support Manager in the Area Director's office he is already going to know which arguments are valid and which ones are not. The Compliance Technical Support Manager is not going to take action in your favor unless your letter is credible. This is the reason I keep checking the case law and try to stay current. He is going to know what the courts have done most recently and so should we. If your letter contains arguments that are not valid you letter will not be credible nor will it be effective. I think if your letter is good enough the Compliance Technical Support Manager can tell the IRS agent that is chasing you, ‘If you don’t leave this one alone, we are going to get sued.’ Two of my friends got their levies off using this process by just sending the letter!

Some of the people that read this will ask, ‘Will it work?’ I think you should probably be asking, ‘Can I make it work with just a letter, or, will I have to sue?” As I was reviewing the case law I came across the following collateral wins that came after a suit was filed:

Mrs. Shaw received a refund of all the money collected, and the remaining tax liability was abated. Shaw v. U.S., Fifth Circuit.

The government dismissed the criminal action against the plaintiff. Fishburn v. Brown, Sixth Circuit, 1997.

The IRS returned a seized Cadillac. Washington v. U.S., Ninth Circuit, 1992.

The propriety of the defendant’s (IRS/US) calculation of the plaintiff’s tax liability was resolved in the plaintiff’s favor in tax court. Templeman v. U.S., First Circuit, 1994.

Improperly levied funds were returned. Raymond v. U.S., Sixth Circuit, 1993.

The government conceded that an assessment was erroneous and released its liens. Miller v. U.S. (N.D. Cal. 1992).

The government provided the forms during the litigation that they had previously refused to. Ball v. U.S., No. 94-2125 (7th Cir. 1995).

If you choose to file suit and go about it right you can even win damages. In the 5th Circuit case of Gandy Nursery v. U.S. a jury awarded Gandy Nursery $388,500 in damages. The district court also awarded Gandy Nursery $317,738.50 in costs and attorney's fees and ordered that the Government pay post-judgment interest on the $16,800 awarded Gandy Nursery for the Government's negligent failure to release certain liens.

To me, that is just amazing to find any published decisions that go against the IRS because typically they do not publish those.

So, it is time to start looking around for the provisions of Title 26, or the regulations promulgated under Title 26 that the IRS has recklessly or intentionally, or by reason of negligence, disregarded. I offer a package that will make it easier and cheaper for you to pursue this process to stop a levy against.

TO HELP YOU EFFECTIVELY DELIVER YOUR ARGUMENTS THIS PACKAGE INCLUDES:

•   106 cases about 26 U.S.C. § 7433 (Why Read these?)
•   A copy of the statute 26 U.S.C. § 7433
•   A copy of the regulation 26 C.F.R. 301.7433-1
•   2 sample “administrative claim” letters that won
•   The Area Director Addresses to send your letter to
•   Instructions for use of the package.