Tax Relief Lawyers in Edwardsville

"Tax relief" is a term largely used to discuss a few different concepts. It generally refers to any action that would reduce the tax rates, either for everyone, or for certain groups of people in Edwardsville, Pennsylvania, or anywhere else.

When a politician or government official uses the term "tax relief," they are usually referring to tax cuts, which are simply a reduction in the tax rate for everybody, or certain people.

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 secret technique that can get Pennsylvania 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 Edwardsville, Pennsylvania

Some con-artists in Edwardsville, Pennsylvania say that they have some secret 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 Edwardsville, Pennsylvania have no actual capacity to reduce your legal liability to pay your taxes. However, these scams also have numerous common factors which tend to be dead giveaways of their fraudulent nature, making them fairly easy to avoid if you are extremely vigilant.

There is one warning sign that virtually guarantees that the tax relief company you're dealing with intends to defraud you: if they make an absolute guarantee that they can lower your tax bill. While there are some legal ways to try and reduce your tax requirement, including negotiating with the IRS, there is no guarantee that they will prevail. And although the IRS does have programs to assist people who are truly unable to pay for their taxes, they are only available to very small subset of the population, and most Edwardsville, Pennsylvania taxpayers aren't eligible to participate in them.

Another red flag to look for is a demand of a large up-front payment. Many tax relief scammers in Edwardsville will not even pretend to try and help you. Instead, they simply take the money and disappear, sometimes after making further, and illegal, charges to your credit card or withdrawals from your bank account.

How Can a Tax Relief Attorney in Edwardsville, Pennsylvania 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 Edwardsville, Pennsylvania tax lawyer.

A competent and reputable tax attorney in Edwardsville, Pennsylvania will give you objective legal advice on how to handle a tax law issue. A reputable tax attorney delivering honest advice, however, will tell you the truth, which may not necessarily be what you want to hear. The upside, of course, is that the information they're giving you is actually useful, as opposed to the "advice" given to you by a tax relief scammer, which, if followed, would put you in a worse position than you were before. Plus, you will have a good deal of legal recourse against a tax attorney, in the unlikely event that a licensed attorney defrauds you.