Offer in compromise eligibility is a four-part screen, fully checkable before filing - and the doomed offers that fund the tax relief industry all failed a screen nobody ran. This lesson is the screen.

Gate One: Compliance

The IRS returns offers unprocessed when required returns are missing or current-year payments are not running - withholding adequate or estimates being made. An open bankruptcy also bars filing. Compliance is the toll for every resolution program, and for offers it is checked at the door: the comeback work comes first, then the offer.

Gate Two: The RCP Math

The IRS accepts offers at or above reasonable collection potential: net equity in assets at quick-sale value - typically 80 percent of market, minus loans and the exemptions the rules grant - plus monthly disposable income under the collection standards, multiplied by 12 for offers payable within five months or 24 for longer schedules. If RCP lands well below your balance, an offer is plausible; if it meets or exceeds the balance, the program is mathematically closed regardless of hardship stories, and an agreement or hardship status takes over. Special circumstances - age, health, dependent care - can justify acceptance below strict RCP, but they supplement the math; they do not replace it.

Gates Three and Four: Funding and the Statute

The offer amount must actually be payable on the schedule elected - the structure choice changes the price through the multiplier, and faster funding is usually the cheaper offer. And the statute check: a pending offer pauses the 10-year collection clock for its duration plus a tail, which means an offer filed late in the statute can gift the IRS the very time it needed - the single most expensive screening failure in the catalog, and the reason the expiration dates get computed before any offer decision.

Running Your Screen

Honest inputs, one afternoon: transcripts for the statute dates and compliance picture, a real financial statement for the RCP, and the funding question answered plainly. Pass all four gates and the offer becomes a package-building project with strong odds. Fail any one and you just saved thousands and a frozen year. I run this screen for free, and the answer is straight in both directions. Bring the numbers.