State tax resolution

Most people who owe the IRS also owe their state, and the state side often gets treated as an afterthought until it becomes the more urgent problem. State agencies generally have shorter collection timelines and less procedural ceremony, which in practice means they can move to garnishment or a bank levy faster than the federal process would. Solving the federal case while the state case runs unattended is a common and expensive mistake.

In the Pacific Northwest the picture differs sharply by state. Washington has no personal income tax, so individual balances there are usually about business obligations — Business & Occupation tax, sales and use tax, and audits from the Department of Revenue. Oregon has a personal income tax administered by the Department of Revenue, plus Portland-area local taxes such as Metro's supportive housing tax and Multnomah County's preschool tax, which have generated a growing number of balances for people who didn't know they applied. Idaho's State Tax Commission administers personal and business income tax with its own collection practices.

Each agency has its own payment plan terms, its own settlement or hardship provisions where they exist, and its own appeal procedures — and none of them mirror the IRS. We work the state matter in parallel with the federal one so that the two resolutions fit together, rather than agreeing to a state payment the federal budget can't absorb, or vice versa.