If you owe taxes to the IRS but your business is no longer in operation (and has no assets of value), you may wonder if you can get out of paying any tax debt owed.
Whether the IRS has pursued you about this debt before or not, it is unlikely that it will be overly interested in the business. If the business was closed in a regular, normal fashion, the IRS probably already has given it currently Not Collectible status. The IRS will not normally be interested so long as none of the assets of the business were transferred elsewhere (i.e. in order to continue operating the business unlawfully). Any notices you get from the IRS if your business was closed legitimately are probably generated by a computer and therefore should most likely be disregarded.
The IRS can come after you for some taxes however, even with Currently Not Collectible status. They can create a trust fund recovery penalty against you for any employment taxes that were not added to your employees’ pay checks (and were therefore unpaid). They have the ability to come after you for these “trust fund” taxes if they believe you were responsible for the decision to not pay the taxes. They can even come after your business for the debt, but of course, this is unlikely with the Currently Not Collectible status in place. All managers, owners etc of the business can be charged with personal liability for this debt.
The IRS can collect everything from one individual or they can collect it from many individuals. They cannot collect tax to more than 100% of what is owed. If someone else pays 100%, you will be relieved of having to pay yourself.
