When the Verdict Is “You Owe”: Installment Agreements 101

When a client lands in your office with an unexpected balance due, the path forward is rarely an Offer in Compromise. It's an installment agreement — and since the IRS restructured its payment plan architecture in March 2025, the analysis a practitioner has to run looks different than it did a year ago. The Streamlined Installment Agreement is gone. The Simple Payment Plan replaced it, with new thresholds, a new financial disclosure cutoff, and revised lien mechanics. Practitioners who are still working from the old framework are quoting clients the wrong terms.

This program brings the installment agreement decision tree current and walks through how to apply it.

Program Overview

The session is built around the choice a practitioner actually has to make: given a client's assessed balance, filing compliance, and monthly budget, which payment vehicle fits, what disclosure does it require, and what happens with the lien. The current options — Short-Term Payment Plan, Simple Payment Plan, and Non-Streamlined Installment Agreement — are covered in sequence, with their thresholds, repayment windows, Collection Statute Expiration Date interaction, and lien implications laid out side by side. The second half of the program applies the framework to a worked client scenario and walks through submitting the agreement through the IRS Online Payment Agreement tool as the taxpayer's authorized representative.

What Will Be Covered

• The post-March 2025 installment agreement architecture and what changed under OCC Memo SBSE-05-0325-0008
• The three current vehicles for individual taxpayers: Short-Term Payment Plan, Simple Payment Plan, and Non-Streamlined Installment Agreement
• Assessed balance thresholds, repayment terms, and CSED interaction for each option
• The financial disclosure threshold under the Simple Payment Plan and when Form 433-F or 433-A is still required
• Current Notice of Federal Tax Lien filing and withdrawal rules, including the role of direct debit and payroll deduction agreements
• Failure to File and Failure to Pay penalty mechanics under §6651, including how penalties and interest continue to accrue during an active installment agreement
• A worked case study: separating a client's go-forward withholding obligation from payments toward back taxes, sizing the monthly payment, and selecting the agreement that fits
• Submitting an installment agreement through the IRS Online Payment Agreement tool as POA, including the Form 2848 authorization levels that block a representative from using the online system

Who This Program Is For

Enrolled agents, CPAs, and tax attorneys who handle individual collection matters in their practice. The material is positioned for practitioners newer to collection work and for experienced preparers who want to make sure their installment agreement workflow reflects the current rules rather than the pre-2025 framework still circulating in older training materials.

Practical Takeaways

After attending, participants will be able to:

• Identify the correct installment agreement vehicle under the current IRS framework based on assessed balance, filing compliance, and CSED
• Determine when financial disclosure is required and when the Simple Payment Plan allows the agreement to proceed without it
• Counsel a client on lien consequences, including when a direct debit agreement can keep a Notice of Federal Tax Lien off the public record or support its withdrawal
• Build a sustainable monthly payment by isolating the client's go-forward withholding and estimated tax obligation from the payment toward back taxes
• Submit the agreement through the IRS Online Payment Agreement tool with a properly executed Form 2848

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‍*Self-Study recording not available for NASBA CPE credit.

IRS Program #: 7Q3WU-T-00899-26

CTEC Course #: 6248-CE-00245