Generally speaking, the Internal Revenue Service has a maximum of ten years to collect unpaid taxes. After that period has elapsed, the obligation is completely erased and removed from the taxpayer's account. This is considered “amortization”. The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has audited you and it has been determined that you owe money to the government.
So, you may be thinking that you are now in trouble for good. However, that's not exactly the case. Although the IRS doesn't share it widely, every IRS audit tax debt has an expiration date of the collection statute (CSED). Generally speaking, the IRS has 10 years to collect an unpaid tax debt, after which the debt is eliminated.
Towards the end of the CSED, the IRS tends to be more aggressive in its collection efforts, hoping that the taxpayer will pay as much as possible before the deadline or agree to extend it. As a general rule, there is a ten-year statute of limitations for IRS collections. This means that the IRS can try to collect your unpaid taxes for up to ten years from the date they were evaluated. With some important exceptions, after the ten years have elapsed, the IRS must stop its collection efforts.
Every year, the statute of limitations expires for thousands of taxpayers who owe money to the IRS.
