In Northern Virginia, an unpaid IRS balance can lead to a levy on federal pay or contract payments. Unfiled returns and unpaid tax can also come up in a security clearance review. From the Falls Church office, our tax attorneys represent federal employees and retirees, contractors, cleared professionals and people who left federal service to work for themselves.
We also work with other individuals, business owners and closely held companies. We can handle a matter from the first IRS letter through Appeals and any litigation that follows.
Our office at Fairview Park has a Falls Church mailing address. But it sits in Fairfax County's Merrifield area, outside the City of Falls Church. A tax case from here can go to the federal courthouse in Alexandria, or to Washington, about twelve miles from the office.
Tax deadlines are short, and most leave little room for error. Show us the notice, and we will tell you what it is, when its deadline falls and what your options are. Then you decide whether to hire anyone.
Get directions 3190 Fairview Park Drive, Suite 800 By appointment only. to the Falls Church office (opens Google Maps in a new tab)Common matters we see here
- IRS balances and unfiled returns that surface in a security clearance review
- Levies on federal annuities, salaries, and contract payments through the Federal Payment Levy Program
- Payroll tax problems at federal contractors and other employers, including the trust fund recovery penalty
- IRS audits, examinations, and information document requests
- Eggshell audits and criminal tax investigations
- Offers in compromise, installment agreements, and currently not collectible status
- Penalty defense, penalty abatement, and reasonable cause claims
- IRS notices, liens, levies, wage garnishment, and passport certification
- Virginia Department of Taxation assessments, administrative appeals, and refund claims
- Residency and domicile disputes
Local regulators & venues
U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Virginia (Alexandria Division)
Fairfax County and the City of Falls Church are both in the Alexandria Division, which sits at the Albert V. Bryan U.S. Courthouse on Courthouse Square. Tax refund suits and criminal tax prosecutions from this area are heard there. The district describes itself as a fast-paced "Rocket Docket," for criminal as well as civil cases.
U.S. Tax Court
The Court has no place of trial in Northern Virginia. Its two Virginia cities are Richmond and Roanoke, but you may request any place of trial, and Washington, about twelve miles from the office, is one. You make the request on Tax Court Form 5 (Request for Place of Trial), filed with the petition. The Court makes reasonable efforts to honor it, but it is not bound to.
U.S. Court of Federal Claims
You can also file a refund suit here instead of in the district court. The court sits in the Howard T. Markey National Courts Building on Madison Place, across the river in Washington. It tries every case without a jury, while either side in an Alexandria refund suit can ask for one. Appeals from this court go to the Federal Circuit, not the Fourth, which can matter if the Fourth Circuit has already ruled against taxpayers on your issue.
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
The Fourth Circuit sits in Richmond, at the Lewis F. Powell Jr. Courthouse. It hears appeals from the Alexandria Division, and Tax Court appeals by taxpayers who live or are based in this area.
Federal pay and contractor stock options
Fairfax County describes itself as home to numerous federal agencies, employees and contractors. Federal pay has its own IRS collection program, the Federal Employee/Retiree Delinquency Initiative. Under it, the IRS matches its records of unfiled returns and unpaid balances against federal personnel files. Where the initiative applies, its main tool for collecting those balances is a continuous levy on federal payments. That levy stays in place, payment after payment, until the IRS releases it. The payments it can reach include annuities and some federal salaries.
If you work for a government contractor that pays you partly in stock options, the tax risk is different. For options granted after 2013, the basis a broker reports on Form 1099-B can be too low. Basis is your cost for tax purposes, and the reported figure leaves out any amount already taxed as income when the option was granted or exercised. If your return does not add that amount back, you pay tax on the same income twice.
Your choice of court
If your dispute goes to court, you first decide whether to pay the tax. Without paying, you can take a deficiency, the added tax the IRS says you owe, to the U.S. Tax Court. If you pay and file a refund claim, a refund suit can follow, in Alexandria or at the Court of Federal Claims.
A refund suit usually requires full payment first. Employment taxes and the trust fund recovery penalty are exceptions, because they are divisible. Before you sue, you only have to pay the tax for one employee for one quarter, not the whole assessment.
The Alexandria court's fast docket changes how you prepare. A refund suit there should be ready before it is filed, with records, witnesses and any accounting or valuation work in hand. Criminal tax cases there move as fast. So in an investigation here, defense work belongs before any charge, not after.
The Tax Court is easy to reach from here too: you can ask for trial in Washington, a short drive away, instead of Richmond. Make the choice of court deliberately, usually well before the Independent Office of Appeals closes your file.
Home on one side of the Potomac, work on the other
Your legal residence when you file a Tax Court petition generally decides which circuit hears any appeal. Where you work does not matter. So if you live in Arlington and work in the District, your appeal goes to the Fourth Circuit, not the D.C. Circuit. Under the Golsen rule, the Tax Court then follows that circuit's precedent, even at a trial in Washington.
The boundary between those two circuits runs around the District, not along the river. If you move from Arlington into the District before you file the petition, any appeal goes to the D.C. Circuit. A move to Maryland keeps it in the Fourth.
For a corporation, the test is its principal place of business, or its principal office or agency, when it petitions. So a contractor based in Tysons or Reston stays in the Fourth Circuit, even when its customers are agencies across the river.
Communities from Arlington to Loudoun County
From Fairview Park, we serve clients in Falls Church, Fairfax County, Arlington, Alexandria, McLean, Tysons, Vienna, Annandale, Springfield, Reston, Herndon, Loudoun County and Prince William County.
IRS practice is federal. So we also represent clients here whose examinations the IRS runs from offices in other parts of the country. And we help clients whose filing obligations now reach into the District of Columbia, Maryland or another state with a Whiteford office.
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 →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. Virginia state and local tax matters are handled together with Whiteford attorneys admitted in Virginia, or with co-counsel where a matter requires it.
Why taxpayers choose Whiteford
- In practice since 1933 as a full-service firm, with bankruptcy, corporate, employment, and white collar lawyers among our in-house colleagues.
- We handle IRS examinations, Appeals, collection and Tax Court cases nationwide from this office.
- If your problem belongs with someone else, or needs no lawyer at all, we will tell you.
Frequently Asked Questions
I hold a security clearance. How does an unfiled return or an IRS balance factor in?
What should a clearance holder do first about unfiled returns or unpaid tax?
Our company holds federal contracts and has fallen behind on payroll taxes. What can the IRS reach?
Does an unpaid tax debt come up when our company bids on federal work?
I left federal service and now consult on my own. How do I stay current with the IRS?
If my case goes to Tax Court, do I have to travel to Richmond?
Do you meet with clients at the Falls Church office?
My IRS notice gives me only a few weeks to act. Is it too late to get help?
What happens on the first call?
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