Okay, this forum is awesome, and you guys are all great! So I am quite sure I just missed a thread about this and if so can someone direct me to it? I looked in the FAQ's and around several forums on the site, but to no avail.
I live in NYC and the lawyers here seem pretty clueless, which is quite odd in a city as saavy as this one. Anyway, one lawyer tells me her fee would be about $2,000.00 plus the filing fee. I know nothing about lawyers for BK and have no idea if this is good or not, but it certainly sounds reasonable to me. While I want to save money, of course, I do not want to skimp on somethig so important and end up with some shoddy guy in a basement who will screw this all up, particularly the taxes part of it! You get what ya pay for, right? ;)
Okay, so I talk to her. Her name is Irene, and her default position is that taxes are absolutely not discharged in any BK. Sooooo....I put on my most polite and discreet teacher's hat and ask her (with about as much humility as I can muster) to please check her facts. She still assures me that she is right, to which I say she is the lawyer not me, but that I have been researchhing ths for a while, and it is TOO IMPORTANT to me to just take one lawyer's word for it. I even conceded to her that all my info comes from the Internet, whch is a vast repository of disinformation, figring to "disarm" her a little.
Anyway, after a conversation she agrees to look into the matter. She then calls me back and says that it is VERY HARD to do but that I was indeed correct. Then she gives me some nonsense speech about there being no fraud on any of those tax returns, to which I respond that of course there was no fraud as I have never even been audited! She then tells me something which makes no sense, that the burden of proof is on me.
She asks me if I can PROVE there was no fraud!! At this point I'm like "are you kidding me? How can I possibly prove the negative of something I have never been accused of?"
I asked her if she died her hair last year and she laughed and said no, to which I said, "prove it!" I then explained that you could not prove something like that because all you can do is say you filed accurately and turn over all your paperwork.
Lucky for me I do happen to have ALL of my records for all the years I want to have the taxes discharge and can turn them over to anyone that wants to see what my expenses, gross collections, my PLLC filings, and whatever, but I certainly CANNOT prove I didn't commit fraud!
On top of all that, she then tells me that I am in for a big fight to get the taxes discharged (you know, the ones she originally said could not be?) and that it would now cost me between four and five grand and there were no guarantees about the taxes!!
Needless to say, I told her I would get back to her, which I have absolutely NO intenion of doing.
Sorry for this long post, but I had to vent. Can someone please point me in the direction of a thread already in existence about finding a lawyer for this who is competitive in terms of price, very good at his or her job, and knowledgeable about taxes?
Thank you!
I live in NYC and the lawyers here seem pretty clueless, which is quite odd in a city as saavy as this one. Anyway, one lawyer tells me her fee would be about $2,000.00 plus the filing fee. I know nothing about lawyers for BK and have no idea if this is good or not, but it certainly sounds reasonable to me. While I want to save money, of course, I do not want to skimp on somethig so important and end up with some shoddy guy in a basement who will screw this all up, particularly the taxes part of it! You get what ya pay for, right? ;)
Okay, so I talk to her. Her name is Irene, and her default position is that taxes are absolutely not discharged in any BK. Sooooo....I put on my most polite and discreet teacher's hat and ask her (with about as much humility as I can muster) to please check her facts. She still assures me that she is right, to which I say she is the lawyer not me, but that I have been researchhing ths for a while, and it is TOO IMPORTANT to me to just take one lawyer's word for it. I even conceded to her that all my info comes from the Internet, whch is a vast repository of disinformation, figring to "disarm" her a little.
Anyway, after a conversation she agrees to look into the matter. She then calls me back and says that it is VERY HARD to do but that I was indeed correct. Then she gives me some nonsense speech about there being no fraud on any of those tax returns, to which I respond that of course there was no fraud as I have never even been audited! She then tells me something which makes no sense, that the burden of proof is on me.
She asks me if I can PROVE there was no fraud!! At this point I'm like "are you kidding me? How can I possibly prove the negative of something I have never been accused of?"
I asked her if she died her hair last year and she laughed and said no, to which I said, "prove it!" I then explained that you could not prove something like that because all you can do is say you filed accurately and turn over all your paperwork.
Lucky for me I do happen to have ALL of my records for all the years I want to have the taxes discharge and can turn them over to anyone that wants to see what my expenses, gross collections, my PLLC filings, and whatever, but I certainly CANNOT prove I didn't commit fraud!
On top of all that, she then tells me that I am in for a big fight to get the taxes discharged (you know, the ones she originally said could not be?) and that it would now cost me between four and five grand and there were no guarantees about the taxes!!
Needless to say, I told her I would get back to her, which I have absolutely NO intenion of doing.
Sorry for this long post, but I had to vent. Can someone please point me in the direction of a thread already in existence about finding a lawyer for this who is competitive in terms of price, very good at his or her job, and knowledgeable about taxes?
Thank you!
) but because of the complexities of your case regarding the taxes, etc. The ideal lawyer to look for in your case would be one that either handles irs litigation and bankruptcies or that handles both chapter 11 and chapter 7. Because you had a business, and because taxes are very difficult to get discharged, and because you are going to be filing your tax returns right before you file, you will need a lawyer that is used to working with the irs. There are many people in nyc in your situation and they typically go to firms that specialize in taxes and bankruptcy.
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