subject: How A Payment Arrangement Can Save You Stress [print this page] If there is anything I've learned from my brother, it's to take very good care of my money. He isn't the most financially sound person on the planet and though he has a great job that pays him very well, he still always finds himself broke or in debt to one organization or another, or even worse, to my dad. He often feels that shirking these responsibilities means that they will go away, but he really learned his lesson when he owed taxes last year and hoped that just maybe he could avoid paying for as long as he could. The IRS offered a payment arrangement even after avoiding them for a time and he finally took it, but never kept to it. And that is when he found himself in a seriously bad situation.
If you find yourself owing money to the IRS, the best thing you can do is own up to it. The IRS, although portrayed by others as the biggest evil on earth, really aren't that soulless. They will give you time to pay taxes through a payment arrangement that works for you and how much you make every month. It's usually a very easy process; you call them up, tell them over how many months you'd like to pay and they'll break the sum up into equal payments across that time. As long as you send payment by the date due, whether electronically or through mail, you won't have a problem.
Payment arrangements can really save you a lot of stress. It's bad enough to know you owe a few thousand dollars that you don't have just lying around. Money problems is the number one stress for most Americans and stress can lead to health problems. Not to mention, it just doesn't feel good. So being able to make your payments in the way that works for you is as easy as adding it to your list of bills due. It also hurts a lot less paying in smaller increments than in one whole lump sum.
So don't follow my brother's footsteps. Do the right thing and get set up with the IRS. They can actually be very reasonable if you explain your situation to them and once you are paid off, it'll be another thing you no longer have to worry about. And a good track record with the IRS will mean that they won't be keeping too much of an eye on you in the future, like they are undoubtedly doing now with my poor brother.
