When the exposure is significant, the first decision is who handles it.
Nyar Tax is federal tax controversy counsel to business owners, executives, investors, family offices, and professionals with holdings abroad, and to the CPAs and wealth advisors who represent them. We handle examinations, administrative appeals, and litigation where the amounts, the records, or the facts make the matter something other than routine.
Inquiries are reviewed by an attorney. Engagements are accepted selectively.
If you are holding a notice with a fixed deadline, call rather than submitting a form.
A statutory notice of deficiency carries a petition deadline that cannot be extended for any reason, including good ones. A collection due process request carries its own short window. These matters are triaged by telephone the same day and are not routed through the assessment engagement.
The matters that bring people here.
Usually not a first notice. Usually a matter that has developed a complication someone has recognized.
An examination that has changed character
The information document requests have narrowed. The agent is asking about a specific transaction, a specific year, or a specific source of funds. The tone of the exam has shifted.
A return position that will not survive scrutiny
Something was filed that the taxpayer, the preparer, or both now view differently. The question is no longer the deduction — it is what disclosure, amendment, or posture is appropriate, and in what order.
Partnership or entity-level adjustments
An adjustment at the entity level under the centralized audit regime, with consequences distributed across partners who have competing interests and separate counsel.
Unreported foreign accounts, entities, or assets
Reporting obligations that were not met, where the penalty framework and the availability of disclosure procedures depend heavily on how the failure is characterized.
Employment and trust fund exposure
Payroll tax liabilities where the entity cannot pay and the assessment is moving toward the individuals the Service identifies as responsible.
Collection against substantial assets
Liens or enforcement affecting business interests, transactions in progress, lending relationships, or professional licensure — where the collection question is inseparable from the commercial one.
A matter that may not stay civil
Indicators of fraud development, a summons that reads differently than the others, an agent who has stopped asking questions. These matters are handled differently from the outset, and the first weeks matter disproportionately.
A dispute headed for adjudication
A statutory notice issued, appeals exhausted or bypassed, and a decision to be made about petitioning the Tax Court and how the case would be tried.
An Employee Retention Credit under review
A credit claimed, often on a promoter's advice, that the Service is now examining or seeking to recover. The questions are eligibility, whether to defend or correct the claim, and how to limit penalties and interest while doing it.
A Bank Secrecy Act examination
An FBAR penalty examination for unreported foreign accounts, a Form 8300 review of large cash transactions, or a compliance examination of a money services business. These run under Title 31 rather than the tax code, with different procedures, penalties, and forums.
Your accountant can be compelled to testify. Counsel cannot.
This is the single most consequential structural fact in a sensitive tax matter, and it is routinely discovered too late. Your accountant's workpapers are discoverable. His recollection of what you told him is testimony the government can obtain. The federal tax practitioner privilege is narrow by statute — it does not extend to criminal proceedings, and its application to other matters is limited.
Attorney-client privilege is broader. Where an accountant's analysis is genuinely needed, a Kovel engagement can bring that work under counsel's direction and within the protection. But the protection depends on the sequence: who was retained, by whom, and when the work was performed. That sequence cannot be reconstructed after the fact.
If there is any prospect that the facts of your matter are uncomfortable, the order in which professionals are engaged is not an administrative detail. It is a substantive decision with consequences that persist for the life of the matter.
The Exposure and Posture Assessment
A defined, paid engagement that produces a written assessment of where the matter stands, what the realistic range of outcomes is, and what should happen next. It is not a consultation, and it is not a sales conversation.
Terms
Turnaround
Five business days from receipt of documents. Expedited delivery in two business days is available where timing requires it.
Deliverable
Written assessment, delivered and then reviewed with you by telephone or in person.
Credit
The assessment fee is applied in full against the opening retainer if the firm is engaged for the underlying matter.
Engaged under
A signed assessment agreement, which establishes the attorney-client relationship before any documents are reviewed.
Not used where
A fixed statutory deadline falls within even the two-day expedited period. Those matters are triaged by telephone the same day instead.
The fee is charged because the work is substantive and because it produces something you own and can act on, including with other counsel. It is not a screening call.
What the assessment establishes
Clients connected to sixteen countries and territories, on five continents, answering to one federal tax system.
A significant share of this practice involves taxpayers who live, earn, or hold assets outside the United States. The Service reaches them with the same examinations, penalties, and collection tools, usually with more reporting at issue and less time to respond. A notice of deficiency addressed outside the United States carries a 150-day petition period rather than 90, and it still cannot be extended.
U.S. citizens and green card holders abroad
Foreign owners of U.S. entities and real property
Unreported foreign accounts and assets (FBAR, Form 8938)
Foreign corporation and trust reporting (Forms 5471, 3520)
Streamlined procedures and voluntary disclosure
International information-return penalties
Engagements are conducted by secure document exchange and video conference, scheduled across time zones.
Where our clients' matters reach
Each connection is one of three kinds: U.S. citizens and residents with roots or family in the country who do business in the United States; businesses based there with U.S. operations, owners, or investors; and foreign accounts, assets, or income reported on FBAR or Form 8938.
Within the United States: Arizona, California, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas.
Representation
Engagements are structured and priced by phase. Each phase is engaged separately in writing, with scope and fee agreed before it begins. You are never asked to commit to a stage of the matter that has not yet been reached.
Examination and Appeals
Proposed adjustments, multi-year examinations, sensitive exams
Representation from the first information document request forward — controlling what enters the record, managing the interview, framing the factual and legal position, and taking the matter to an agreed close or an unagreed one on the record you want to carry into Appeals.
Phase one
Examination, through agreed report or unagreed close
Phase two
Written protest and Appeals conference
Phase three
Docketed Tax Court proceedings, engaged separately
Federal tax matters exclusively. Authorized to represent taxpayers before the IRS in all 50 states under Treasury Department Circular 230, and admitted to practice before the United States Tax Court. State matters are handled with established co-counsel and accounting professionals.
Collection and Enforcement
Revenue Officers, levies, liens, seizure exposure
Matters where a Revenue Officer has been assigned, enforcement has begun, or collection is reaching assets that matter — business interests, receivables, transactions in progress, or lending relationships. Representation covers financial disclosure strategy, the collection alternative pursued, and the appeals rights attached to the particular action taken.
Phase one
Immediate posture: filings, holds, and the financial picture
Phase two
Collection alternative or challenge, developed and submitted
Phase three
Collection due process or equivalent proceedings
Collection matters move on the Service's schedule, not yours. Where enforcement is already underway the first phase is compressed and priced accordingly.
Employment Tax and Personal Exposure
Unpaid payroll taxes, responsible person assessments
Unpaid employment taxes create two distinct problems: the company's liability, and the personal assessment that follows against the individuals the Service identifies as responsible. Once that assessment is made, collection reaches personal assets, and it survives the company. Representation addresses the entity exposure, the responsible person analysis, and the protest window that opens when the proposed assessment letter is issued.
Phase one
Entity exposure and responsible person analysis
Phase two
Protest of the proposed assessment
Phase three
Appeals, and collection strategy for any amount assessed
A note on conflicts. The company and the individual frequently have adverse interests here, and where several officers receive proposed assessments at once, so do they. This firm cannot represent parties whose interests conflict, and will tell you at the outset which single client it can represent. Any engagement requiring separate counsel for other parties is identified before it begins, not after.
Advisory: before the Service asks
Some of the most valuable work in this practice happens before there is a dispute, or after one closes. It is attorney-directed and conducted under privilege, alongside your existing CPA where one is involved.
Exposure reviews
A privileged review of a position already taken, such as a large deduction, a conservation easement, an Employee Retention Credit claim, a captive insurance arrangement, or unreported foreign accounts. You learn the risk and the options, including amendment, disclosure, or defense, before anything is filed or said.
Disclosure and remediation strategy
How, and in what order, to return to compliance when the facts are uncomfortable: streamlined procedures, the IRS voluntary disclosure practice, or amended filings, chosen for the facts rather than by default.
Penalty-protection opinions
Written legal analysis you can rely on in support of reasonable-cause protection under section 6664(c), prepared before a significant position is taken.
Transaction review with examination in mind
A sale, restructuring, or cross-border move reviewed for how it would hold up under examination, working with your CPA rather than in place of them.
Compliance after resolution
The controls, reporting, and deposit discipline that keep a resolved payroll or international matter from recurring.
Tax analysis in high-net-worth divorce
Working with family law counsel to analyze the parties' returns and business records: income reported against lifestyle, the true value and tax cost of assets being divided, and exposure from joint returns already filed, including whether innocent spouse relief is available.
The same review performed by an accountant alone is generally discoverable; directed by counsel, with the accountant engaged under a Kovel arrangement where needed, it can be protected. Advisory engagements are defined in writing before work begins, including how any issue the review uncovers will be addressed. The firm does not prepare returns and works alongside your existing advisors.
Scope of practice
An examination that has changed character
Individual and business examinations
Eggshell and reverse-eggshell exams
Partnership audits under the BBA regime
Employment tax examinations
Accuracy-related and fraud penalty issues
Summons enforcement and responses
Information document request strategy
Appeals and litigation
IRS administrative appeals
United States Tax Court litigation
Statutory notices of deficiency
Collection due process proceedings
Refund claims and related actions
Innocent spouse relief
Employee Retention Credit examinations and recapture
Penalty abatement and reasonable cause
Disclosure and collection
Voluntary disclosure
Offshore accounts, entities, and FBAR
Bank Secrecy Act and Form 8300 examinations
Tax analysis in divorce matters
Unfiled and amended return strategy
Trust fund recovery penalty
Liens, levies, and collection alternatives
Kovel engagements with accounting professionals
Co-counsel and advisor engagements
For existing clients and referred matters, the firm also handles installment agreements, offers in compromise, and returning to filing compliance. Employment tax matters are also served through payrolltaxcounsel.com.
Counsel
Matters are handled by the attorney you speak with. The practice is deliberately small, and the number of engagements accepted at one time is limited.
Representative matters
Described generally, without identifying information. Amounts are stated only where they can be verified and disclosed consistently with client confidentiality.
A CFO's personal liability in an $8 million employment tax matter
Following Form 4180 interviews, the Service moved to hold the chief financial officer of a multi-entity company personally liable under section 6672. We dealt directly with IRS Counsel, presented forensic accounting analysis of who in fact controlled payment decisions, and contested the responsible-person determination.
Outcome: the CFO was relieved of personal exposure, and the liability remained with the corporate entity.
Collection threatened against partnership operating assets
Corporate principals faced a high six-figure assessment and threatened enforcement against partnership-owned construction equipment and other business assets. In a docketed Tax Court matter, we negotiated directly with IRS Counsel, using independent asset valuations to demonstrate errors in the assessment.
Outcome: the assessment was reduced to under $30,000, and the risk of enforced collection was removed.
Levies on operating accounts after six quarters of missed deposits
An employer more than six quarters behind on Form 941 deposits, with over $200,000 outstanding, faced a filed federal tax lien and levies on its operating accounts. We brought current deposits into compliance, obtained release of the levy, and secured a section 6159 installment agreement, with voluntary payments designated to the trust fund portion of the liability to reduce the owners' personal exposure.
Outcome: the business retained its operating assets and continued without interruption.
A seven-figure assessment after a high-net-worth relationship ended
Following the end of a high-net-worth relationship involving substantial shared assets, the Service assessed a seven-figure, multi-year tax liability. We represented the taxpayer before the U.S. Tax Court and, when the Small Business Administration withheld corresponding disaster-relief funds, represented the taxpayer before the SBA and engaged congressional offices to facilitate their release.
Outcome: the assessment of more than $1 million was reduced by 90 percent, to one-tenth of the original amount.
Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome in any future matter. Each matter turns on its own facts, its own record, and the discretion of the taxing authority or tribunal involved.
For accountants, wealth advisors, family law attorneys, and outside counsel
A substantial share of this practice arrives by referral from professionals who have identified a matter that needs to move out of their file and into counsel's.
If you have a client whose examination has turned, whose return position has become a problem, or whose facts have reached the point where your own testimony is a consideration, the referral can be structured so that it does not disturb your relationship with the client. Engagements are frequently handled as co-counsel or under a Kovel arrangement, with the referring professional retained to perform the accounting analysis under privilege.
The firm does not prepare returns and does not compete for compliance work.
For family law counsel in high-net-worth divorces, the firm analyzes the federal tax side of the marital estate: what the returns show and omit, the tax cost of the proposed division, and the parties' exposure on joint returns already filed.
Insights
Analysis of the procedural decisions that shape high-exposure federal tax matters, written for taxpayers and the professionals who advise them.
Blog posts coming soon.
Examinations
When a civil audit carries criminal risk
How to recognize an eggshell audit, and why the taxpayer should not be the one speaking with the agent.
International
Streamlined procedures or voluntary disclosure?
Choosing a path for unreported foreign accounts when the question of willfulness is not simple.
Examinations
Should you sign the statute extension?
What Form 872 does, what a restricted consent is, and what declining to sign actually triggers.
Questions counsel is asked at this stage
We already have a CPA. Why bring in counsel?
At what point should counsel be involved?
Is my current representative's work a problem?
Can you tell me my likely outcome at the outset?
How is the firm engaged, and how are fees structured?
I have a notice with a deadline on it. Can you assess it first?
Can you represent both my company and me personally?
Will my matter be handled by the attorney I speak with?
How is confidentiality handled before an engagement exists?
Request a confidential assessment
Tell us only what is necessary to determine whether the matter is one this firm should take. An attorney reviews every inquiry.
Do not include sensitive facts, account numbers, or documents in this form. Conflict screening is performed before any substantive discussion, and the assessment agreement is signed before any documents are reviewed.
If a statutory deadline is within fourteen days — a notice of deficiency, a collection due process request, a petition date — call 1.888.995.2015 rather than submitting this form.
Office
9600 Great Hills Trail, Suite 150W
Austin, Texas 78759
By appointment only. Meetings are also held by secure video conference.
Telephone
Outside the United States
Include your country and a preferred window for a call in your local time.
NYAR TAX
Federal tax controversy counsel. Examination, appeals, and litigation. Austin, Texas. Clients worldwide.
9600 Great Hills Trail, Suite 150W
Austin, Texas 78759
By appointment only
PRACTICE
IRS examination representation
Eggshell and sensitive examinations
Partnership and entity-level adjustments
Offshore reporting and voluntary disclosure
Employment and trust fund matters
IRS Appeals
United States Tax Court litigation
Advisor and co-counsel engagements
Attorney advertising. This website is for general information only and constitutes attorney advertising in jurisdictions where that designation applies. Nothing on this page is legal, tax, or accounting advice, and none of it should be relied upon as a substitute for advice regarding your specific circumstances.
No attorney-client relationship. Contacting the firm, submitting the inquiry form, or sending email does not create an attorney-client relationship. That relationship is established only by a signed written engagement agreement. Information transmitted before an engagement exists may not be privileged. Please do not send confidential documents until requested.
No guarantee of results. Tax outcomes depend on the facts of each matter, the developed record, the applicable law, and the discretion of the taxing authority or tribunal involved. The firm does not guarantee any result, does not promise a reduction or elimination of any tax liability, and does not represent that any taxpayer will qualify for any particular resolution or disclosure program. Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome.
Scope of practice. The firm's practice is limited to federal tax matters. State and local tax matters are handled with co-counsel and accounting professionals admitted or licensed in the relevant jurisdiction. The firm's attorney is licensed in Illinois, admitted to the United States Tax Court, and authorized to represent taxpayers before the IRS in all 50 states under Treasury Department Circular 230, and is not licensed in Texas. Federal tax matters are handled nationally and for clients abroad.
Not affiliated with any government agency. This firm is a private law practice. It is not the Internal Revenue Service, is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of the IRS, the United States Department of the Treasury, the Department of Justice, or any state taxing authority, and uses no government seal, logo, or insignia.
Responsible attorney: Daylan A. Nyarko. Principal office (by appointment only): 9600 Great Hills Trail, Suite 150W, Austin, Texas 78759.
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