Tax Relief Lawyers in Alameda County

"Tax relief" in Alameda County, California can refer to a wide range of subjects. However, it almost exclusively refers to lowering the tax liability, either of an individual, or a group of individuals.

When a government official or politician talks about "tax relief," they are usually talking about a tax cut, which is a reduction in a specific tax rate.

Increasingly, however, the general public is being inundated with advertisements on the Internet, the radio, and in print, from companies offering "tax relief" to consumers who owe back taxes in amounts that will be difficult or impossible to pay back. These companies claim to have some unique technique that can get California residents out of paying their taxes, or at least negotiate their final tax bill down to a smaller amount. Some of these companies are legitimate, but many of them are total frauds.

Tax Relief Scams in Alameda County, California

Some con-artists in Alameda County, California say that they have some unique technique that allows you to reduce the amount of taxes you're legally required to pay, or that they can erase any tax debt that you have incurred.

In the majority of cases, however, tax relief scammers in Alameda County, California have no actual capacity to reduce your legal liability to pay your taxes. However, these scams also have various common factors which tend to be dead giveaways of their fraudulent nature, making them fairly easy to avoid if you are extremely vigilant.

One of the biggest warning signs that one should look for is an explicit promise that someone can eliminate your tax debt. This is simply not a promise that anyone can honestly make. While the IRS does have programs to assist people who are truly unable to pay their back taxes, through no fault of their own, they only apply in the most extreme cases, so the vast majority of taxpayers in Alameda County, California don't qualify for them.

And if a tax relief organization demands up-front payment, this should raise a big red flag for you. Many scammers in Alameda County, whether they're vowing tax relief, or anything else, will take your money, and then disappear, without even pretending to try to help you. The worst of the worst will also take the money you agreed to pay them, and then make unlawful charges to your credit card, or withdrawals from your bank account.

How Can a Tax Relief Attorney in Alameda County, California Help?

If you find that you are unable to pay your taxes, through no fault of your own, you may be tempted to answer an advertisement for a "tax relief" company. Before that, you should talk with an Alameda County, California tax lawyer.

A good Alameda County, California tax attorney can give you honest, unbiased legal advice that will be useful in handling any problem you have with your taxes. Of course, as you probably know, honest advice is, more often than not, the opposite of what one wants to hear, even if it is more useful than whatever puffery you'll hear from a scammer. Plus, in the extremely unlikely event that your tax attorney defrauds you, it will be much easier to seek legal action against a licensed attorney than against some scammer who likely doesn't use his or her real name.