A tax lien can be the most difficult credit issues that can happen to you. The IRS will put a tax lien against you on your credit report and if you own property they will put it against that also. You probably don?t have a chance to get out of it because the IRS is relentless and they will be ruthless when it comes to collecting their money. Your only real hope is to be able to negotiate for a lesser amount.
If you own property the lien will be put against that. It will prevent you from selling the property and eventually they may even be able to confiscate the property to satisfy the lien. If you don?t own property it will only show on your credit report but you will not be able to get a home mortgage, a car loan, student loans or probably even credit cards. A tax lien is very detrimental to your credit.
It is very rare that anyone gets out of a tax lien entirely. Usually the best thing that can happen is that you are able to negotiate to pay a lesser amount to satisfy the debt. However, even after it is paid off it is possible that it may still stay on your credit report for as long as 7 years. If it never gets paid it could stay on the report for as long as 15 years but the IRS can renew the lien so it is possible that you could have a tax lien on your credit report forever if you don?t pay it off.
You are probably wasting your valuable time if you try to dispute and fight the tax lien. The IRS is very powerful and they will track you down and find you. The best you can usually do is to negotiate to pay a lesser amount to satisfy the debt.
After you have paid off the tax lien, it is possible that it will still show on your credit report for as long as 7 years. However, you can take some steps to try to avoid this. When you are negotiating for the lesser amount, put in a request that they remove it from your credit report also. If you are unsuccessful at that you can try to dispute the listing with a letter.
You will need to submit a written dispute to all three of the main credit-reporting bureaus, TransUnion, Equifax and Experian in the United States. Because of the Fair Credit Reporting Act you as a consumer, have the right to dispute any negative listing that shows up on your credit report. If you have paid the tax lien off you probably have a fairly good chance to get the listing deleted from the report.
As you are disputing the negative listings make sure that you keep a copy of all communications either from the credit bureaus or to the credit bureaus. After they receive the letter, they have 30 to 45 days in which to either confirm the accuracy of the listing or delete it from your report. If you do not get a deletion immediately you may have to try again as many times as it takes to get results.
Using credit repair techniques can be very helpful for your financial future and your long-term financial life. You can do all of the work yourself or you may also choose to use the experience and expertise of a professional credit repair service. You are responsible for your good credit standing so if you need to do some credit repair to improve it you should do it as soon as possible so that your credit is good when you need it to be.
