Aureus Advisory Partners
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The IRS Is Taking Your Money.
This Can Often Be Stopped. But Not By Waiting.
Wage garnishments and bank levies are the IRS's final move, not its opening one, and they can frequently be released, reduced, or prevented from repeating.
What decides the outcome is how fast the right steps happen.
This is the page where you stop reading and start acting.
IRS TAX RESOLUTION
You are working directly with an IRS Enrolled Agent.
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Our team includes Enrolled Agents licensed by the U.S. Department of the Treasury with unlimited authority to represent clients before the IRS for audits, collections, appeals, and notices in all 50 states.
That representation is built into every engagement we take on.
First, Understand What Just Happened
If your wages are being garnished
The IRS sent your employer a levy notice, and your employer is legally required to comply. This is not your employer's choice, and arguing with HR changes nothing. An IRS wage levy is continuous. It attaches to every paycheck until it is released or the debt is satisfied.
If your bank account was levied
The IRS took a snapshot of your account on the day the levy hit. Your bank is required to hold those funds for 21 days before sending them to the IRS. That window exists so releases can be negotiated. If money was frozen recently, it may still be recoverable.
Either way, you did not get here without warning
The IRS is required to send a Final Notice of Intent to Levy and wait 30 days before seizing anything.
If those letters went unopened or to an old address, that history matters, because procedural errors are one of the ways levies get released.
What Can Actually Stop a Levy
A Formal Resolution Agreement
The most common release path. When you enter an installment agreement or are placed in hardship status, the IRS's reason for levying disappears and the levy is typically released. The levy is leverage. Giving the IRS a resolution takes the leverage away.
Procedural Defects
No Final Notice issued, notices sent to a wrong address, levy filed while an appeal was pending: the IRS has rules, and when it breaks them, the levy can be released and funds returned.
Collection Due Process Rights
If your Final Notice is recent, you may still be inside the 30-day window to request a hearing that pauses collection. This window is measured in days, not months. If your notice is dated within the last month, contact us today, not this weekend.
Economic Hardship
If the levy prevents you from paying basic living expenses, the IRS is required to release it. This must be demonstrated with financials in the format the IRS requires, not just asserted. Done correctly, hardship releases can move quickly.
What does not stop a levy: ignoring it, calling the IRS to argue without a proposal, or waiting for it to expire. Wage levies do not expire.
Why Speed and Representation Both Matter
Releasing a levy is a negotiation with a deadline attached. It requires knowing what the IRS needs to see, assembling it in the format collections will accept, and getting it in front of the right unit before the next paycheck or the 21-day bank window closes.
This is not the moment to learn the IRS phone tree.
At Aureus, active collections cases are handled at the senior level, under the direction of a federally licensed Enrolled Agent, because the stakes and the pace demand it. Once our authorization is on file, the IRS talks to us, the pressure comes off you, and the case moves at the speed the calendar requires.
How Aureus Handles an Active Levy
1
Emergency Case Review
We establish the facts fast: what was levied, when, which notices exist, and what deadlines are still alive, including the 21-day bank window and any hearing rights. You leave the first conversation knowing exactly what is recoverable.
2
Authorization
and Contact
Our authorization is filed and we contact IRS collections directly, often the same day the engagement begins. From this point, you stop being an unrepresented taxpayer, and that changes the conversation immediately.
3
Release
Strategy
We pursue the fastest viable release path your facts support: a resolution agreement, a hardship demonstration, a procedural challenge, or a hearing request, and in parallel we build the underlying resolution so the levy does not come back.
4
Confirmation
and Prevention
A release is not real until your employer or bank receives it, so we confirm delivery, not just approval. Then we finish resolving the debt itself, because a released levy with an unresolved balance is a paused problem, not a solved one.
Frequently asked questions
How fast can a garnishment or levy be released?
When the facts support it, releases can happen in days, and the IRS can fax a wage levy release directly to your employer. Bank levies are more time-critical because of the 21-day window. Speed depends on how quickly we can document your situation, which is why the intake happens immediately.
Will I get back the money already taken?
Sometimes. Funds still inside the 21-day bank holding period are the most recoverable. Wages already paid over are harder, but procedural errors and hardship can support returns. We will tell you honestly what is recoverable and what is gone.
Can the IRS take my whole paycheck?
The IRS must leave you an exempt amount based on your filing status and dependents, and it is far smaller than most people expect. Everything above that line goes to the IRS, every payday, until the levy is released.
My employer knows now. How embarrassing is this going to get?
Your employer's payroll department processes the levy; it is a compliance task for them, not a judgment. The faster the release arrives, the shorter the episode. Most clients tell us the anticipated embarrassment was worse than the reality.
Will filing my missing returns or setting up a plan stop this?
Those are usually components of the release, yes. The IRS wants compliance and a resolution path, and delivering both is exactly the strategy. If you have unfiled returns, that becomes step one.
What does this cost?
A fixed fee, quoted at your case review. Active collections work is priced by what your release requires, and you will know the number before we begin. What it costs to do nothing is on your last pay stub.
Every Payday Without a Release
Is Money You Don't Get Back
A wage levy does not pause while you think.
A bank levy's 21-day window does not extend because you were busy.
The IRS moved on its schedule to get here, and it will keep moving on its schedule until someone makes it stop.
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That someone is available today.
This page provides general information and is not tax or legal advice. Eligibility for installment agreements, offers in compromise, hardship status, and penalty relief depends on the specific facts and financial circumstances of your case. No outcome is guaranteed.