It’s Friday after a long week at work. You are ready to burn off some energy and head over to the ATM to grab some cash for the night out. You put the card in the machine and it is eaten. A notice appears on the screen telling you to contact the bank immediately. You, my friend, have a frozen bank account and the IRS may be the reason why.

Fast is not a word that is attributable to the IRS. The agency is huge, undermanned and overworked. That being said, once it gets rolling it can do a lot of damage. This is particularly true when it comes to the treatment of taxpayers that owe back taxes. The agency may not catch up to you for a few years, but it eventually will. When it does, it will start freezing your assets and there is simply never a good time for that to happen.

So, what happened in the ATM situation above? The IRS placed a levy on it. This is simply a notice to the bank that it must freeze the account and not let the money in it be withdrawn. If the bank doesn’t comply, it gets penalized in large amounts. In short, the bank is going to freeze your account and there is no amount of pleading by you that is going to change that simple fact.

At this point, you need to contact the IRS immediately. You have 21 days to work out some type of agreement with the agency. It could be a payment plan, an offer in compromise filing or whatever. It is highly recommended that you hire a tax professional to help you with this. If you haven’t been paying Uncle Sam, it is probably because you’ve been short on money. A tax professional may be able to convince the IRS that you are a turnip and that it will get little blood from you regardless of how hard the agency squeezes!

What if you can’t get an agreement in place in 21 days? The IRS will suck the amount you owe out of the bank account. In short, it is time to get hustling!