Beginners Level Workshop

Welcome & Who Can Represent Before the IRS

Workshop orientation — materials, study licenses, and CE/CPE attendance rules — then the foundations: who holds unlimited representation rights before the IRS and why clients should never represent themselves.

Setting Your Fees: Unconscionable & Contingent Fees

What Circular 230 actually says about fees, the $15,000-an-hour case that defined 'unconscionable', and the only four situations where a contingent fee is allowed in tax practice.

The Fee Calculator

A full demo of PitBullTax's Fee Calculator: baseline pricing for every tax resolution service, psychological fee factors, printing and emailing quotes, and customizing the price sheet for your market.

Collect Upfront & Know Your Worth

Why you collect fees before the work starts, how to structure 50-50 arrangements and recurring payment plans, and the yacht-engine story: clients pay for your knowledge, not your time.

Engagement Letters: Creating & E-Signing

Building the formal contract in PitBullTax: selecting services, terms and fee arrangements, protective clauses like 'earned when paid' and timely-manner definitions, and getting built-in electronic signatures.

Engagement Letters: Customization & Templates

Turning a one-off letter into a system: editing verbiage block by block, building service-specific templates that produce an engagement letter in under a minute, and creating blank letters like welcome and closing letters.

Power of Attorney: 2848 vs 8821

When you need Form 2848 versus Form 8821, the responsibilities that come with being on file, the four-representative limit, ranges and future years, matters not recorded on CAF, the ISP checkbox, and authenticating remote clients.

Preparing Form 2848 in PitBullTax

The data-entry approach to every IRS form: copies for spouses, headings and notes, deceased-taxpayer requirements, sole proprietorships on an individual POA, and why your phone number — never the client's — goes on the form.

2848 Tax Matters & Defaults

The three tax matters to put on every individual POA — 1040 back to 2000, separate assessment, and civil penalty — why exams are the exception to ranges, the checkboxes that break e-services access, and setting up defaults so every POA takes seconds.

Filing the POA: Common Errors, Withdrawal & Revocation

The rejection traps — missing signatures, missing officer titles, fiscal-year formats — plus how a representative withdraws versus how a client revokes, retaining prior POAs on line 6, and scheduling CAF checks so you know the moment you're on file.

Submitting Authorizations on the IRS Portal

A live walkthrough of irs.gov/submit2848: signing in with ID.me, the authentication declaration, uploading wet-signed and e-signed forms, and the urgent cases where a wet signature still matters.

Form 8821: Tax Information Authorization

Using 8821 as your information pipeline: unlimited designees including your firm, why every tax prep client should sign one, wage & income timing, automatic revocation, and preparing 8821s with defaults in PitBullTax.

Bulk Authorizations & Delegated Users

Creating 2848s and 8821s in bulk for your whole client base, expiration notifications, and the right way to give staff transcript access: delegated users on your e-file application with their own ID.me — never shared credentials.

IRS Transcript Types: Return, Account & Wage/Income

The transcript catalog, part one: tax return transcripts and the 'per computer' lines, account transcripts as the tax resolution workhorse, record of account, and the 10-year wage & income transcripts and summaries.

Separate Assessment, Civil Penalties & TXMODA

The specialist transcripts: verification of non-filing, separate assessments after bankruptcy or innocent spouse splits, civil penalty transcripts for TFRP, and TXMODA — the most detailed transcript, available only through FOIA.

Transcript Reports: Liability, Compliance & CSED

The PitBullTax report package begins: branding your cover page, the income tax liability report and why unpaid assessed balance drives installment agreement thresholds, the compliance report's collection statuses, and estimated CSED with tolling events.

Reports: Penalty Abatement, Bankruptcy & Audit Risk

Turning reports into revenue: first-time abatement eligibility you can convert with one phone call, the bankruptcy dischargeability report and when to refer out, and audit risk indicators that flag returns to amend before the IRS finds them.

Account Summaries & Business Report Packages

The account transcript summary that means you never open raw transcripts again, the payments and credits history, civil penalty reports, and the business package — including the column that answers 'can the IRS still come after me personally?'

Pulling Transcripts: e-Services Connection & Scheduling

Requesting transcripts through PitBullTax: the one-hour e-services connection, selecting types and consecutive periods, scheduled deliveries, daily CAF checks that auto-pull on pass, alerts, and how the secure mailbox really works.

Bulk Requests, Alerts & the Transcript Dashboard

Monitoring at scale: batching transcript pulls for hundreds of clients, alert scheduling and priorities, and the transcript dashboard — liability inventory, offer in compromise success tracking, FTA opportunities, and installment agreement health.

Monitoring, Client Summary & Customization

Where monitoring becomes recurring revenue: catching missed installment payments before termination, the client summary page you open on every IRS call, and customizing alerts, reports, and dashboards to run your practice like an inventory.

Day 1 Q&A and Wrap-Up

Closing questions from the room: troubleshooting failing CAF checks, verifying e-services access directly, signing Form 12153 as a representative, and what's ahead for Day 2.

Day 2 Welcome & Day 1 Follow-Ups

Morning housekeeping: IRS transcript layout changes overnight, updated course materials, why one attendee's CAF checks were failing (a missing hyphen), and dashboard auto-update questions from Day 1.

The Client Questionnaire: Concept & Best Practices

Why collecting client data is the hardest part of tax resolution, and how the online questionnaire fixes it: clients as your data-entry specialists, Spanish versions, why clients never see errors, and resending only the pages with problems.

Client Questionnaire Demo: Sending & Populating

The full walkthrough: sending by email, SMS, or shareable link, reminder sequences, what happens at Submit, resolving errors, and the verify-and-populate step — overwrite versus preserve, and why garbage in means garbage out.

Client Portal, Files & Chat

The representative side of the client portal: folder trees and system folders, sharing forms and transcript reports, the secure chat with edit and delete, portal activity alerts, and notification settings that only email you what you haven't seen.

Step-by-Step Workflow & Case Diagnostics

The guided workflow that trains new staff: from client creation through transcripts, case diagnostics as a scripted client interview, the scenario simulator, and how the settlement-option step reshapes every step below it — plus CDP hearings as the ace up your sleeve.

Offer in Compromise: The Rules & the CSED Reality

What an OIC really is — authorities, policy statement P-5-100, offer examiners versus offer specialists — and the trap behind 'settle for pennies' ads: the formula means nothing without the collection statute expiration date. Plus a candid discussion of staged engagement pricing.

OIC Types: Collectability, Liability & ETA

The three offer types and when each applies: doubt as to collectability with lump-sum versus periodic calculations and low-income exceptions, doubt as to liability after failed audits, and the rare effective tax administration offer — plus why audit reconsideration usually comes first.

Installment Agreements: Every Type

Guaranteed, streamlined, non-streamlined with the six-year and one-year rules, in-business trust fund express, routine, and partial-pay agreements — plus payment methods, why direct debit avoids lien filings, and the penalty rate cut for timely filers.

Currently Not Collectible

The truth behind 'you don't have to pay anything': who really qualifies for CNC, closed businesses and penalty write-offs, why the statute keeps running, and the hardship closing codes 24–32 you must explain to every client.

Bankruptcy for Tax Debts

When bankruptcy beats an OIC: the three-year, two-year, and 240-day rules, fraud and lien exceptions, Chapter 7 versus Chapter 13 with lien stripping and loan cram-downs, and using dischargeability as leverage in offer negotiations.

The Resolution Evaluation Tool

The side-by-side comparison that closes engagements: assets, income and allowable expenses feeding calculated OIC, installment agreement, and CNC outcomes — including the lump-sum warning most practitioners miss.

Case Study: John & Gretchen

Hands-on case one, end to end: questionnaire entry, asset valuation with the OIC exemptions, LA County expense standards, and the final call — a $8,654 lump-sum offer versus a $77-a-month partial pay, and why the offer wins despite costing more.

The Collection Statute & Tolling Events

Ten years — except when it isn't: offers, bankruptcy, CDP hearings, innocent spouse claims, pending installment agreements, overseas absence, and the equivalent-hearing strategy that gets you appeals without tolling the statute.

Collection Information Statements: Which Form, When

The 433 family decoded — A, F, A-OIC, B, B-OIC — with the thresholds that decide when financials are required: $100k with revenue officers, $250k at ACS, a brutal $25k for businesses. Plus single-member LLCs, non-liable spouses, and dissipated assets.

Valuing Assets: Equity, Exclusions & Aggressive Advocacy

Net realizable equity in practice: pushing quick-sale value below 80% with real costs, appraisals over Zillow, loan balances on 401(k)s, the retirement-to-income reclassification for older clients, vehicle exemptions, and income-producing asset exclusions.

Expense Standards & Passport Certification

The allowable-expense grid: national standards you get without proof, lower-of-standard-or-actual categories, greater-of for healthcare and transit — then the FAST Act: the $62,000 seriously-delinquent threshold and every exclusion that protects a passport.

Form 433-A/OIC Demo: Identity, Marriage & Money

Inside the combined 433-A entry: choosing the resolution that decides which form prints, marital status mechanics for non-liable spouses with prorated contributions, employment details, the 'fishing expedition' legal questions, and bank account adjustments.

Form 433-A/OIC Demo: Assets, Expenses & Business

The rest of the form: investment tax-effect fields, digital assets, real property titling for non-liable cases, vehicle ordering for maximum exemptions, prorated expense details, and the business pages down to net income flowing back into the offer.

Case Study: Josh Flagg — a $984k Debt, a $125k Offer

The self-employed OIC worked end to end: an income-producing Escalade excluded from equity, Miami expense standards versus real spending, the CSED math that proves the offer, and collateral agreements — what the IRS demands from commission earners.

Form 656: The Offer Itself

Finishing the package: tax periods auto-selected from transcripts, AI-drafted explanations of circumstances, low-income certification, payment schedules and designating deposits to the newest year, the five-year compliance fine print, and the refund-timing strategy.

Case Study: OIC with a Non-Liable Spouse

A Brooklyn couple, a recent marriage, and her old tax debt: prorating shared expenses from his $5,200 contribution, valuing her rental duplex on a cash-flow basis, and why negative remaining income makes the $16,059 offer equal for lump-sum and periodic.

Penalty Relief: The Four Criteria & Reasonable Cause

Why penalties exist, the strict priority order of relief — IRS error, statutory exceptions, first-time abatement, then reasonable cause — and what 'ordinary business care and prudence' really demands, with the corrupted-QuickBooks case that failed.

First-Time Abatement Mastery

The FTA playbook: which penalties qualify (file, pay, deposit — 'Florida Police Department'), the clean three-year lookback, why 'first-time' doesn't mean once-in-a-lifetime, abating expired years against current debt, timing requests to maximized penalties, and the international line trick for 5471/5472.

The $562,000 Abatement

The penalty abatement queen's story: a $13M-income client, $500k in late penalties spotted on the PitBullTax eligibility report, one 15-minute phone call, recalculated interest — and a 20% contingency fee that outran any hourly rate.

AI Unleashed: Trustworthy AI & the IRM Companion

Adrian's session opens: what makes AI trustworthy (no training on your data, TLS encryption), then the Internal Revenue Manual companion — asking questions across 39 parts, checking the references behind every answer, and prompting effectively for step-by-step, bilingual results.

AI for IRS Transcript Alerts

Making sense of 250+ alert types: the alerts assistant explains any transcript code and generates a formatted step-by-step action plan — with the customizable-alerts page as the training ground, in English or Spanish, in any tone.

AI Letters & Email Drafting

Drafting engagement letters and client emails in minutes instead of hours: prompt with your scope, fees, and clauses; populate with macros the assistant inserts itself; switch to Spanish with a dropdown — and why every AI draft still needs your supervision.

AI on IRS Forms & the Logo Designer

The newest frontier: AI-drafted explanations of circumstances on 656, 843, 911 and more — dictating facts or replaying a client's voice note straight into the form, space-aware output — plus designing a firm logo from a text description.

Syncing Your Outlook Email

Connecting Microsoft 365 so every email, questionnaire, and portal invitation sends through your own address — killing spam-folder problems, mirroring into your Outlook sent items, and the SMTP authorization your IT team must enable first.

Cloud Storage Sync: Drive, OneDrive & Dropbox

Automatic client-file backups to your own cloud: two-way versus one-way sync modes, choosing which system folders replicate (those transcript PDFs add up fast), the 15-minute cycle, and the deletion behavior you need to understand.

The Zoom Integration

Meetings without app-juggling: instant and scheduled Zooms from inside a client's case, auto-recording, billable meetings that flow into invoices, calendar invitations in ICS format, and the meetings log that tracks it all.

Case Management: Calendar & To-Dos

Will's tour begins: the built-in calendar with recurring events, per-user views, and Google/Outlook sync — then the to-do list with subtasks, priorities, reminders, billable flags, and automatic to-dos generated every time a prospect becomes a client.

Case Tracking & Time Tracking

Every case as a running record: statuses, priorities, and notes that accumulate automatically from to-dos and timers; management reports by case manager and fees; and the floating time tracker that follows you through the software.

Billing: Invoices, Payments & Reports

The billing module end to end: invoices assembled from unbilled items and work codes, payment processing through linked merchant accounts with recurring and customized schedules, QuickBooks export, and the full report suite.

Logos, E-Signatures & DocuSign

Branding your letterheads, invoices, and questionnaires with your uploaded logo and custom header — then the e-signature landscape: what signs natively (engagement letters, 7216), what needs DocuSign envelopes, and KBA identity proofing for clients you've never met.

White Labeling, History Log & Activities

Rebranding the whole application with your logo and colors for every user, the workshop attendee discount, the history log that records every change with before-and-after values, and the activity stream of system-generated notes.

IRS Contacts, Client Summary & SMS

The finishing touches: a linked IRS contact book per client, the client summary page as command center — cases, invoices, authorizations, and officer contacts on one screen — and the new two-way SMS with opt-ins, bulk blasts, and metrics.

Wrap-Up: Credits, Recordings & Next Steps

Closing the workshop: how CE credits get reported to the IRS for enrolled agents versus CPA certificates, the recording distribution plan, the attendee discount, and goodbyes — penalty abatement smiles for the camera.