A tax attorney from our Fairfield office can handle your IRS audit, tax debt, or payroll tax penalty. We represent individuals and closely held companies across Essex, Passaic, Morris, and Bergen counties. The office is at 375 Passaic Avenue, Suite 100, a few minutes from Route 46 and Interstate 80.
Clients usually call after a letter arrives, such as a notice of deficiency or a levy on a business bank account. The time to respond is short. The clock starts on the date shown on the notice, not when the letter reached you.
Once you hire us, we file Form 2848, which lets us represent you before the IRS. From then on, the auditor and any revenue officer generally deal with us instead of you.
Get directions 375 Passaic Avenue, Suite 100 By appointment only. to the Fairfield office (opens Google Maps in a new tab)Common matters we see here
- Trust fund recovery penalty proposals against owners and officers of closely held Fairfield-area companies
- Appeals to the IRS Independent Office of Appeals, Tax Court petitions, and refund suits
- IRS audits by mail, at an IRS office, or on site, including eggshell audits with hidden criminal risk
- Collection defense against liens, levies, wage garnishment, and passport certification
- Installment agreements, offers in compromise, and requests for currently not collectible status
- Unfiled returns and the substitute for return assessments the IRS makes in their place
- Division of Taxation audits covering sales and use tax, gross income tax withholding, and corporation business tax
- Responsible person assessments for unremitted sales tax and withholding
- Residency and domicile challenges, nexus and registration disputes, and voluntary disclosure
Local regulators & venues
U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey
The court's Newark vicinage takes cases from Essex, Passaic, Morris, and Bergen counties. It sits in the Martin Luther King Building and U.S. Courthouse on Walnut Street. A district court refund suit must be filed here if you live in New Jersey or your company's principal place of business is in the state. Either side may ask for a jury. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the District of New Jersey also brings its federal tax prosecutions here.
United States Tax Court
You can contest a deficiency here before paying it, but one judge decides the case, without a jury. Newark is the court's place of trial for the state, though it keeps no permanent courtroom there. Admission to this court is national, not state by state. So the attorneys who filed your Form 2848 can handle a federal deficiency case here, with no separate state bar admission. A state tax deficiency goes to the Tax Court of New Jersey instead, which requires admission to the state's bar.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit
The Third Circuit sits in the James A. Byrne U.S. Courthouse on Market Street in Philadelphia. It hears appeals from the District of New Jersey and from Tax Court cases brought by the state's residents and companies. The Golsen rule makes the Tax Court follow Third Circuit precedent in any case that would be appealed there. So that precedent shapes a North Jersey Tax Court case from the start. One example is Culp v. Commissioner, on late Tax Court petitions.
Taxpayer Advocate Service
This free service works independently inside the IRS. Its office nearest Fairfield is at 955 South Springfield Avenue in Springfield, and a second is in Trenton. It takes cases where an IRS problem is causing financial difficulty, where normal IRS contacts have failed, or where an IRS system or procedure is not working.
New Jersey Division of Taxation
Audits and assesses sales and use tax, gross income tax withholding, and corporation business tax.
Tax Court of New Jersey
Hears state tax appeals.
Payroll liability for Fairfield-area businesses
Fairfield's business base leans heavily toward distribution, contracting, wholesale, and other closely held companies along the Route 46 corridor. Those are the businesses most often drawn into trust fund disputes, because the money at stake never belonged to the company.
Tax withheld from employees' pay is held in trust for the United States. If a company does not pay it over, the IRS can hold the people responsible for paying it personally liable. This is the trust fund recovery penalty, and it applies only if they acted willfully. In a closely held company, that can mean a controller or a family member who chose which bills got paid, not only the owner.
The same facts can also support a criminal case. Willfully failing to collect or pay over withheld tax is a felony under the Internal Revenue Code. Business owners from Bergen and Passaic counties have faced that charge in the District of New Jersey. Once an audit starts heading that way, the strategy changes, and so does the question of who should talk to the auditor.
Challenging the penalty
The IRS proposes the penalty in Letter 1153. You then have 60 days from the letter's date to protest it to the IRS Independent Office of Appeals.
If Appeals does not settle the case, the usual way to reach a judge is a refund suit. You can bring it in the District of New Jersey or the Court of Federal Claims. The penalty is divisible, meaning it breaks down by employee and by quarter. So paying the amount owed for one employee in each quarter at issue, and claiming a refund of it, is enough to sue.
You can also keep the IRS from levying for the rest of the penalty. Make that payment, file the refund claim, and post a bond, all within 30 days after the IRS demands payment. That protection lasts while your claim is pending, and while any suit you file within 30 days of its denial is pending.
What we handle
IRS Audits
What an IRS audit involves, why the IRS opens one, and how an attorney protects your position from the first letter.
Learn more →IRS Collections
What the IRS can do to collect a tax debt, the rights that apply at each step, and the ways to stop enforcement.
Learn more →Tax Debt Relief
Offers in compromise, installment agreements, injured spouse relief, and other options for how to settle IRS debt and stop enforcement: what each one does, who qualifies, and what to expect.
Learn more →White Collar Tax Defense
When the IRS treats a tax problem as a crime, what conduct is charged, and how a defense attorney answers it.
Learn more →A note on admissions Federal tax matters are handled nationwide, including IRS examinations, appeals, collection, and Tax Court litigation. New Jersey state and local tax matters are handled together with Whiteford attorneys admitted in New Jersey, or with co-counsel where a matter requires it.
Why taxpayers choose Whiteford
- Nineteen offices across the District of Columbia and ten states, which matters when a North Jersey tax problem crosses a state line.
- You deal directly with your attorney, and we quote a flat fee for work we can define up front.
- A complimentary first consultation, to see whether our attorneys can help you resolve your situation.
Frequently Asked Questions
I live in Fairfield but work in Manhattan. Will my federal tax matter be treated as a New York case?
I missed the 90-day deadline to petition the U.S. Tax Court. Is my case over?
Could a Newark jury decide my dispute with the IRS?
Is there a New Jersey office that can step in when an IRS matter stalls?
Can Whiteford represent me before the IRS if I live in New Jersey?
Do I need to travel to the Fairfield office?
What happens in the first conversation?
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