Before the IRS levies your wages or accounts, and after it files a lien notice, federal statute hands you a brake: the collection due process hearing - an independent review you trigger by request, with a federal court standing behind the outcome. It is among the strongest taxpayer rights Congress ever wrote, and it expires on a 30-day schedule whether or not anyone told you it existed.
What the Right Attaches To
Two notices carry it: the Final Notice of Intent to Levy - the LT11 or Letter 1058 - and the Notice of Federal Tax Lien Filing. Each grants 30 days to request a hearing on Form 12153. A timely request does three things at once: bars the levy while the hearing pends, preserves Tax Court review of the determination, and pauses the 10-year collection statute - that last one a genuine cost, weighed deliberately in cases late on the clock, where the equivalent hearing alternative trades away the levy bar and court review to keep the statute running.
What the Hearing Covers
Three territories. Procedure: whether the IRS followed its required steps - levies built on broken notice trails fail. Alternatives: the main event, where installment agreements, offers, hardship status, and lien remedies get proposed and genuinely weighed, because the settlement officer must balance collection efficiency against intrusiveness. And in limited circumstances, the liability itself: if you never received a deficiency notice or had a prior chance to dispute the tax, the underlying debt is on the table - a rule that resurrects audit defenses for people whose mail never arrived.
Using It Well
The request form is a pleading: grounds omitted can be deemed waived, so every applicable basis goes on it. The months before the hearing are preparation months - returns filed, the financial statement built to the standards, the proposed alternative documented - because officers cannot approve alternatives for non-filers or numbers without proof. Done right, the process converts a levy threat into a negotiated resolution with judicial review standing guard. If a final notice is in your hands, the 30 days are running now. Send it to me today.