Tax lien support

We pull the transcript behind the lien to confirm exactly which tax years and dollar amounts it covers, since a lien notice does not always spell this out clearly on its own. We assess eligibility for a withdrawal, discharge or subordination against the specific IRS criteria for each, and identify which one actually serves your goal, selling, refinancing, or simply clearing the public record. We assemble the documentation that specific request needs and prepare the filing for our enrolled agent or CPA partner to submit. What is not included: advice on the real estate transaction itself or a property dispute, which stays with your own attorney, and the underlying tax resolution that removes the balance, such as an installment agreement or offer in compromise, which we scope as its own engagement.

We start by pulling a current transcript to confirm the lien's exact scope: which years, which balances, and whether it was filed correctly against the taxpayer it names. With the facts confirmed, we identify the goal behind the request, a sale, a refinance, or a straightforward record-clearing, and match it to the correct tool, release, withdrawal, discharge or subordination, rather than defaulting to whichever one sounds most complete. We then gather the documentation that specific IRS form requires and prepare it for our enrolled agent or CPA partner, who files it and tracks the response, since discharge and subordination requests especially have processing windows that need to be built into any closing or refinance timeline.

A homeowner or business owner with a closing date approaching who just discovered a filed lien during title search. Someone trying to refinance to a lower rate whose lender flagged an existing lien as a blocker. A taxpayer current on an installment agreement who wants the public lien notice removed for credit or reputational reasons, separate from any transaction. A business with a lien filed against company assets that is complicating a sale, a loan renewal, or a supplier's credit terms. It also fits someone who assumed paying off the balance automatically clears the public record and later discovered the release was never actually recorded.

A closing scheduled in weeks with a lien nobody flagged until the title search came back, where the discharge request has to move on a compressed timeline. A refinance denied because the lender needed a subordination, not a discharge, and the wrong request type had already been filed and rejected. A taxpayer current on a qualifying installment agreement who assumed the lien would clear on its own and never filed the withdrawal request Form 12277 actually requires. A lien that shows two different balances, one on the notice and one on a current transcript, because payments or penalty adjustments were never reflected on the original filing. A resolved balance where the release was never actually recorded with the county, leaving the public notice sitting on file years after the debt was paid.

A release ends the lien once the balance is paid or otherwise satisfied and is close to automatic once that happens, though confirming it was actually recorded is a separate step. A withdrawal removes the public notice itself, sometimes with a balance still open, when the taxpayer meets specific criteria such as being current on a qualifying Direct Debit Installment Agreement, and it is filed on Form 12277. A discharge removes the lien from one specific property, which is what most home sales need, filed on Form 14135, with enough lead time before closing for IRS processing. A subordination, filed on Form 14134, doesn't remove the lien at all, it moves another creditor ahead of the IRS's claim on that property, which is the tool most refinances actually need. Filing the wrong one against the wrong goal is the single most common way this kind of request gets delayed.

We pull transcripts through the IRS Transcript Delivery System to confirm the lien's exact scope before building any request. Closing statements, payoff figures, and installment agreement records are organized against your file in QuickBooks Online or Xero where the lien involves business assets, and the finished request packages are prepared in Drake Tax alongside any related return work. Every document and every filed request moves through the same secure client portal used across your engagement, so a discharge or subordination request under a closing deadline is never a paper trail scattered across email.

Lien work is priced by which specific tool applies and how time-sensitive the request is, since a discharge under a closing deadline moves differently than a withdrawal request with no transaction pending. We quote after pulling the transcript and confirming which of the three tools your situation actually needs, and we flag immediately if a closing or refinance date makes normal IRS processing timelines a real risk to the transaction. That figure is confirmed in writing before the request is prepared.

Every lien request starts from a current transcript, not the original notice alone, so the years and balances behind the request are accurate on the day it is filed. A senior reviewer confirms the specific tool, release, withdrawal, discharge or subordination, actually matches the stated goal before the request goes to our enrolled agent or CPA partner, since filing the wrong one against a closing deadline can cost the transaction itself. And once a balance resolves, we confirm the release was actually recorded with the county rather than assuming it happened automatically.