53 guides

All Texas IRS Guides

Federal tax problems, explained for the way they play out in Texas. Pick a topic or scroll the whole shelf.

Texas Law

Homestead, exemptions, Texas liens, and where state law meets federal collection.

Texas Has No Income Tax. The IRS Does Not Care.

No state income tax does not mean no tax problems. Why Texans get blindsided by the IRS, and what to do when it happens.

6 min read

Can the IRS Take Your Texas Homestead?

Texas has the strongest homestead protection in America. Here is exactly how far it goes against the IRS, and where it stops.

7 min read

Texas Community Property and Innocent Spouse Relief: What Married Texans Need to Know

Community property law can make one spouse's tax problem both spouses' nightmare. Here is how the IRS treats married Texans, and the relief Congress built for the spouse who did nothing wrong.

6 min read

Why Texas Asset Protection Does Not Stop the IRS

Unlimited homestead, protected wages, exempt retirement accounts. Texas shields its people from creditors better than any state, and none of it binds the IRS. Here is what actually is protected.

8 min read

Using a Texas Home Equity Loan to Pay the IRS: Rules, Liens, and Tradeoffs

Paying off the IRS with home equity can stop penalties, interest, and enforcement. In Texas, the loan itself has unusual rules, and an existing federal tax lien adds another layer.

8 min read

Texas Property Tax Loans vs. the Federal Tax Lien: Who Gets Paid First

When a Texas homeowner owes both the county and the IRS, the county usually wins the priority fight. A property tax lender who pays the county may win it too. Here is how that collision works.

7 min read

Where the IRS Files Tax Liens in Texas: County Clerk, Secretary of State, and Why It Matters

A federal tax lien exists the moment a tax goes unpaid. Whether it beats a buyer or lender depends on where the notice is filed. In Texas, that is decided by a short chapter of the Property Code.

Community Property

How the IRS treats married Texans, their income, and their assets.

8 min read

When Only One Spouse Owes the IRS: How Collection Works Against Texas Community Property

Your spouse owes the IRS and you do not. In most states that would mostly be their problem. In Texas, the answer depends on a property concept most married couples have never heard of: management and control.

8 min read

Offers in Compromise When Only One Texas Spouse Owes the IRS

A Texas spouse can file an offer in compromise alone, but the IRS still looks at the whole household. Here is how community income and assets get counted, and the regulation that can keep some of them out.

7 min read

Who Owes Self-Employment Tax on a Texas Couple's Business Income?

Texas community property law splits business profit between spouses for income tax. Self-employment tax plays by a different rule, and couples who mix the two up end up with IRS notices and lost Social Security credit.

8 min read

Married Filing Separately in Texas: Form 8958 and Splitting Community Income

Married couples file separately to keep one spouse's tax problem from becoming the other's. In Texas, community property law makes that harder than it sounds. Here is how the split actually works.

7 min read

Texas Informal Marriage and the IRS: Filing Status, Joint Liability, and Getting Out

Texas is one of the few states that still recognizes informal marriage. If you are in one, the IRS treats you as married, with everything that comes with it: filing status, joint liability, and community property.

7 min read

Husband-and-Wife LLCs in Texas: Disregarded Entity or Partnership Under Rev. Proc. 2002-69

Most two-owner LLCs are partnerships by default. Texas spouses who own one as community property get a choice. Make it on purpose, keep it consistent, and you avoid an expensive mess.

7 min read

The Double Basis Step-Up for Texas Community Property: What the IRS Wants to See

Texas surviving spouses get one of the most valuable rules in the tax code: a new basis for both halves of community property. It only helps if you can prove the value and the character of the property when the IRS asks.

Texas Business

LLCs, partnerships, sole proprietors, and selling or closing a Texas business.

8 min read

Texas LLC Charging Order Protection vs. the IRS: What Actually Protects Your Business

Texas has some of the strongest LLC creditor protections in the country. Business owners assume they work against the IRS too. Here is where that assumption holds and where it breaks.

7 min read

Texas Series LLCs and the IRS: Classification, Returns, and Collection Risk

Texas real estate investors love series LLCs: one filing, many protected cells. The IRS never finished deciding how to treat them, and that uncertainty creates real filing and collection risk.

7 min read

Texas General Partnerships, LLPs, and Personal Liability for Partnership Taxes

Two friends shake hands and start a business in Texas. They have a general partnership whether they meant to or not. If it falls behind on payroll taxes, the IRS can come after both of them personally.

8 min read

Nominee and Alter Ego Liens: When the IRS Goes After Property in Someone Else's Name

Title is not the end of the story. If the IRS believes property in someone else's name really belongs to the taxpayer, it can file a special lien naming that person or entity. Here is how that works.

7 min read

Texas Sole Proprietors and DBAs: Why Your Business Tax Debt Is Personal

Filing a DBA with the county clerk gives your business a name. It does not give it a separate existence. When a Texas sole proprietor owes the IRS, there is no wall between the business and the household.

8 min read

Selling a DFW Business That Owes the IRS: Liens, Discharges, and Closing the Deal

Owners with IRS debt often decide the best exit is to sell. The federal tax lien makes that harder, not impossible. Here is how a sale actually closes when the IRS has a claim.

7 min read

Closing a Texas LLC or Corporation That Owes the IRS

Filing a certificate of termination with the Texas Secretary of State ends the entity's existence under state law. It does not end the IRS's interest in what the entity owed, or in who got its money.

8 min read

IRS Transferee Liability Under IRC 6901: When Someone Else's Tax Becomes Yours

You did not owe the tax. Your parent, your spouse, or your company did. But you received their assets, and now the IRS has sent you a notice of transferee liability. Here is what that means.

8 min read

Moving Assets After the IRS Calls: Fraudulent Transfers Under Texas and Federal Law

When the IRS gets close, some people start moving assets. It feels like protection. It is usually the fastest way to turn a tax problem into a lawsuit, sometimes against your own family.

8 min read

Federal Contractors in DFW With Tax Debt: Certifications, Levies, and Keeping Contracts

DFW is full of businesses that sell to the federal government. For them, IRS debt is not just a balance. It can affect contract eligibility and let the IRS take entire contract payments.

8 min read

Contractor or Employee? When the TWC and the IRS Both Ask DFW Businesses

It often starts with one unemployment claim. A worker you paid on a 1099 applies for benefits, the Texas Workforce Commission decides they were an employee, and suddenly your classification decisions are under review by two agencies.

Land & Minerals

Ranches, mineral rights, wind and solar leases, and conservation easements.

8 min read

Texas Ag Valuation Is Not an IRS Business: Ranch Losses and the Hobby Loss Rules

Plenty of Texans run a few cows to keep their land in agricultural valuation. Then they deduct the losses on Schedule F. The county and the IRS are asking completely different questions.

7 min read

Wind and Solar Lease Payments on Texas Land: How the IRS Taxes Them

A wind or solar lease can produce a stream of payments with different labels: rent, options, crop damage, easements. The IRS taxes them differently, and the 1099s do not always tell you how.

8 min read

Selling Texas Mineral Rights: Capital Gain, Basis, and What the IRS Asks For

Mineral buyers send Texas owners offer letters every month. Before you sign, know whether you are making a sale or a lease, what your basis is, and how the IRS will see the deal.

8 min read

Conservation Easements on Texas Ranch Land: The Legitimate Deal and the IRS Target

Texas families have protected ranch land with conservation easements for decades. Promoters turned the same deduction into a product. The IRS treats those two things very differently.

Living in Texas

No state income tax, sales and property tax deductions, moving here.

8 min read

Moving to Texas: The Federal Tax Issues Nobody Warns You About

People move to Texas to stop paying state income tax. The federal tax side of the move gets less attention, and it is where the surprises come from.

7 min read

The Sales Tax Deduction for Texans: How It Works and What the IRS Checks

Texans cannot deduct a state income tax they do not pay. Federal law lets them deduct sales tax instead. Here is how the election works, how the cap applies, and what to keep if the IRS asks.

7 min read

Deducting Texas Property Taxes: Escrow, Timing, Rentals, and the SALT Cap

Texas makes up for no income tax with property taxes, and federal law lets you deduct them. Timing, escrow, and the difference between your home and your rental decide how much.

7 min read

Texas Unemployment Benefits and Federal Tax: Withholding, 1099-G, and IRS Problems

Losing a job in Texas means no state income tax on unemployment benefits. The federal government still taxes them. Here is how to avoid a surprise bill the following April.

Collections

Liens, levies, garnishments, and your appeal rights.

6 min read

The Federal Tax Lien in Texas: How It Works and How to Get Rid of It

What it means when the IRS files a Notice of Federal Tax Lien in your Texas county, what it does to your credit and your closings, and the five ways to deal with it.

6 min read

IRS Bank Levy in Dallas: The 21-Day Window and How to Use It

Your account is frozen and the clock is running. What a bank levy actually takes, what it cannot touch, and how to get your money back before the bank sends it to the IRS.

6 min read

IRS Wage Garnishment in Dallas: How Much They Take and How to Stop It

The IRS does not need a court order to garnish your paycheck, and Texas wage protections do not apply. Here is what the levy leaves you, and the fastest ways to end it.

6 min read

The Collection Due Process Hearing: Your Best Weapon Against IRS Collection

Before the IRS can levy, it must offer you a hearing, and that hearing can freeze collection, force a settlement review, and open the door to Tax Court. Most taxpayers throw the notice away.

8 min read

Which Court Hears a Texas Tax Dispute? Tax Court, District Court, and the Fifth Circuit

When a dispute with the IRS cannot be settled, the forum you choose shapes everything: whether you pay first, who decides, and which appeals court's law applies. For Texans, the answer often runs through New Orleans.

Settlements

Offers, payment plans, penalty relief, hardship status, and the ten-year clock.

7 min read

IRS Tax Relief for Dallas-Fort Worth Taxpayers: Every Option, Explained

Owe the IRS and live in DFW? Here is the complete map of your options, from offers in compromise to hardship status, written by an attorney who has used every one of them.

7 min read

The Offer in Compromise for Texas Taxpayers: Real Numbers, Real Rules

Yes, people really do settle IRS debt for less than they owe. No, it is not because they hired someone from a radio ad. Here is how the formula works and who actually qualifies.

6 min read

IRS Installment Agreements: Getting a Payment You Can Actually Live With

An installment agreement stops levies and garnishments cold. The catch is that the IRS will happily let you agree to a payment that breaks you. Here is how the tiers really work.

6 min read

IRS Penalty Abatement: Getting Penalties Removed the Right Way

Penalties can be a third of your balance, and the IRS removes millions of dollars of them every year for taxpayers who ask correctly. First-time abatement, reasonable cause, and how to build the case.

5 min read

Currently Not Collectible: When the IRS Agrees to Leave You Alone

If paying the IRS would mean not paying rent, the law says collection stops. How hardship status works, what it costs you, and why it sometimes outperforms a settlement.

6 min read

The Ten-Year Clock: How IRS Collection Statute Expiration Works

Every IRS debt has an expiration date. Understanding your CSED is the single most strategic piece of information in your case, and the IRS will not calculate it for you.

6 min read

Bankruptcy and IRS Debt in Texas: Yes, Taxes Can Be Discharged

The myth says taxes survive bankruptcy. The truth is that income taxes are dischargeable when three timing rules line up. Here is how the clock works and when bankruptcy beats an offer in compromise.

Business

Payroll tax, trust fund penalties, and business tax debt.

7 min read

Payroll Tax Problems for Dallas Business Owners: The Debt That Follows You Home

Form 941 debt is the most dangerous tax problem in America. Why the IRS treats withheld payroll taxes differently, and what a business owner must do in the first 30 days.

6 min read

The Trust Fund Recovery Penalty: When the Business Debt Becomes Yours

The IRS can assess a company's withheld payroll taxes against you personally. Who counts as a responsible person, what willful really means, and how to fight the assessment.

6 min read

Texas Small Business and the IRS: Franchise Tax, Sales Tax, and the Federal Debt Nobody Tracked

Texas business owners juggle the Comptroller and the IRS, and the federal side is where the quiet disasters happen. A practical map of where small business tax debt comes from and how to clean it up.

6 min read

1099 Tax Debt in Texas: The Contractor's Guide to Getting Right With the IRS

Truckers, builders, realtors, consultants: Texas runs on 1099 income, and 1099 income builds IRS debt faster than anything else. Why it happens and the way out.

Audits

Examinations, energy income, and crypto.

6 min read

Oil and Gas IRS Audits in Texas: Depletion, Working Interests, and the Issues That Trigger Exams

Energy income comes with the most specialized tax rules in the code, and the IRS knows most preparers get them wrong. What royalty and working interest owners need to watch.

6 min read

IRS Audit Representation in Dallas: What an Exam Really Looks Like in 2026

Most audits are letters, not visits. What triggers an exam, how the three audit types differ, and why the worst mistake is handling it yourself.

6 min read

Crypto and the IRS in Texas: Miners, Traders, and the 1099-DA Era

Texas became America's bitcoin mining capital, and the IRS built a compliance machine to match. What miners and traders owe, what the exchanges now report, and how to fix past years.

Filing

Unfiled returns and getting back into compliance.

7 min read

Unfiled Tax Returns in Texas: How to Come Back From Years of Not Filing

Five years behind? Ten? You are not going to jail, and you probably do not have to file all of them. The IRS playbook for non-filers, and the right way back in.

Free consultation

Owe the IRS? Let's talk.

The first conversation is free and it is with an attorney. Federal tax problems are handled by phone, mail, and secure upload, so where you live in Texas does not matter.

(813) 229-7100

Monday to Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Eastern