Tax help from IRS | How to get free help from the IRS to pay tax

ATLANTA — More help is coming for low income families who want to challenge their tax bill, and it’s coming from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Low Income Taxpayer Clinics provide legal help to struggling taxpayers for little or no cost. In Georgia, there are three clinics. The oldest one in the state is at Georgia State University, where Tameka Lester has helped people struggling with unmanageable tax bills.

“We work with the IRS all the time and we find it cumbersome,” said Lester. “But for a taxpayer it’s a huge burden so being able to help people with that is really rewarding.”

The IRS helps fund the clinics with grants. The period to apply has opened, and the IRS acknowledges that more clinics are needed in Georgia.

Ted Afield oversees the Phillip C. Cook Low Income Taxpayer Clinic at Georgia State.

“Usually we have about 180 to 200 active cases going at any given time,” Afield said. “At our peak, I think, particularly in the wake of the Great Recession, we had up to 300 cases going at a given time.”

Lawyers and volunteers working for the clinics advocate for qualifying taxpayers having problems with the IRS. That can mean proving eligibility for exemptions, arranging payments a family can handle, even representing a struggling family in court.

“Maybe they got sick or had to become a caregiver or maybe they had a job loss and they really just can’t afford to pay that tax liability,” Afield said. “It’s not uncommon to see some of our taxpayers settle, sometimes in the past it’s been hundreds of thousands of dollars of liability for maybe a payment as low as $10 to $20.”

He says the state could benefit from more clinics like this, and the very agency they often challenge is willing to make that happen.