In a November 2021 brief released by the IRS they state "The IRS will automatically add certain new tax balances to existing Installment Agreements, for individual and out of business taxpayers. This taxpayer-friendly approach will occur instead of defaulting the agreement, which can complicate matters for those trying to pay their taxes." There is no clarification on what these "certain new tax balances" are.
The current year form 1040 balance due certainly qualifies. But I would expect the IRS to send you out some kind of notice (could take more than 6 weeks to do so) since you agreed when you got on the payment plan that you would not get behind again ... doing so used to void the old payment plan. Read up here : https://www.irs.gov/taxtopics/tc202
I found where you found the original info ... that was part of the covid relief efforts ... you would need to ask the IRS directly what this statement actually means : https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-makes-it-easier-to-set-up-payment-agreements-offers-other-relief-to-taxpayers-struggling-with-tax-debts
Thanks for your response. In the brief it states "Following up on our People First Initiative earlier this year, this next phase of our efforts will help with further taxpayer relief efforts." This led me to believe that these actions were next steps beyond the People First Initiative which ended in July 2020. Regardless, it doesn't seem that there has been any official clarification on this point which means I'm, unfortunately, going to need to call them directly.
Hello,
Did anyone get clarification on this. I am in the same boat. I have an existing payment plan (from 2017) and will need to add taxes due for 2021 to it.
Will this be automatic as the following statement seems to imply?
Has anyone called the IRS and gotten a clear answer?
Thanks!!
No, the IRS generally does not automatically add additional years to your tax payment plan. You must do the request for payment plan which will then be added to your old payment plan. Basically, your old payment plan will increase, but you must make the request to add any new tax years to the plan.
Now, if you were doing the payment plan this year and had past due taxes from past years, they would automatically include all the years that were currently showing a balance.
Thank you for the response.
And I did contact the IRS today. I talked to a very nice lady. She said that all you need to do is call them and let them know the unassessed amount that you will owe (in my case from 2021) and they will add it to the existing payment plan over the phone.
An alternative is to wait until the amount is assessed and call then.
There is an $89 fee to process the change.