Here’s a question I was recently asked:

If the you are upside on your house and the IRS has filed a Notice of Federal Tax Lien, will the IRS remove the lien?

Answer:

Not likely.

The IRS doesn’t care if you own property when they file a lien. It’s not like they don’t pull a credit report and do an asset check. When the IRS files a lien, it is basically because you owe money and they want to get paid.

The fact that today, you have no equity for interest for the IRS to attach, is irrelevant. The tax lien is meant to harass you into compliance. If you don’t have any equity, the lien will make it very difficult for you to ever get any; so the IRS wants you to pay them off first.

I’ve recently written about the nearly comical aggressiveness of the IRS in filing liens.

It is possible to get liens withdrawn if it can be proven it is beneficial to the government as well. Liens can also be subordinated in cases of refinance, as long as the IRS gets a little taste of the proceeds. Both withdrawal and subordination are requests we have successfully negotiated with the IRS.