By the Templateez Team · Licensed Attorney · June 2026

Tax Law Intake Forms: What Every Tax Attorney Needs to Capture at First Contact

Tax controversy work is deadline-driven in a way that few other practice areas can match. Miss a 30-day CDP hearing request window and your client loses their right to Tax Court review. Overlook a three-year assessment statute that is about to expire and the IRS loses its leverage — or, worse, your client unwittingly extends it. Fail to screen for criminal exposure before submitting a voluntary disclosure and you may have just handed the Department of Justice a roadmap.

The intake form is where all of this starts. A well-designed tax law intake does more than collect names and phone numbers — it triages the matter type, identifies hard deadlines, flags criminal risk, and captures enough financial data to tell you whether the client can realistically resolve their liability or needs to explore alternatives like an offer in compromise.

This guide walks through every category of information a tax intake form should capture and explains why each one matters. Whether you run a solo tax resolution practice or staff a multi-attorney tax controversy department, the principles are the same.

Matter Type Classification

Tax matters are not fungible. An IRS audit and an offer in compromise require fundamentally different workflows, different IRS contacts, and different legal strategies. Your intake form needs to classify the matter type at first touch so you can route it correctly, assign the right attorney, and set realistic client expectations about timeline and cost.

At minimum, your intake should capture which of the following categories the matter falls into:

Many clients present with multiple overlapping issues — unfiled returns and collections activity, for example, or an audit that has now generated a notice of deficiency. Your form should allow for multiple selections and include a field for the attorney to note the primary and secondary matter types after the initial consultation.

Statutes of Limitation — ASED and CSED

No single piece of information is more strategically important in a tax case than the statute of limitations. Tax practice involves two distinct statutes, and confusing them is a common error among practitioners who do not specialize in this area.

The Assessment Statute Expiration Date (ASED) is the deadline by which the IRS must assess a tax liability — generally three years from the date the return was filed (IRC 6501). If the taxpayer omitted more than 25% of gross income, it extends to six years. If no return was filed, or if the return is fraudulent, there is no statute at all. Your intake form should capture: tax years at issue, whether returns were filed for those years, the filing dates if known, and whether the client has ever signed a Form 872 or 872-A (consent to extend the assessment period).

The Collection Statute Expiration Date (CSED) is the 10-year window the IRS has to collect an assessed tax liability (IRC 6502). This clock starts on the date of assessment, not the date of filing. It can be tolled by an offer in compromise, a CDP hearing request, bankruptcy, or certain other events. For clients with collection problems, knowing how much time remains on the CSED is essential — if only 18 months remain, the strategy may be to run the clock rather than pay.

Your intake form should have dedicated fields for each tax year at issue, the known or estimated ASED, the known or estimated CSED, and whether any tolling events have occurred. If the client does not know these dates, note that and flag the need for an IRS account transcript (TXMOD) as a first-step action item.

IRS Notices and Correspondence

Clients rarely walk in with a clean narrative of what the IRS has sent them. They show up with a stack of envelopes — some opened, some not — and a vague sense that "the IRS is after me." Your intake form needs to cut through this and capture what has actually been issued.

Key notice types to screen for:

For each notice, capture: the notice number or letter number, the date on the notice, the tax year(s) it covers, and the response deadline. A single missed deadline can collapse an entire resolution strategy.

Prior Representation

Tax matters frequently involve prior representation — a CPA who handled the audit before it went sideways, a tax resolution mill that took the client's money and filed nothing, or a prior attorney who withdrew. Your intake form should capture:

This matters for practical reasons — you will need to file a new Form 2848 and may need to revoke the prior one — and for strategic reasons. If a prior representative made representations to the IRS that were inaccurate, you need to know about it before you pick up the phone.

Compliance History

The IRS treats compliant taxpayers differently from chronic non-filers. First-time penalty abatement is only available to taxpayers who have been compliant for the prior three years. Offers in compromise require the taxpayer to be current on all filing obligations. Installment agreements can be defaulted if the taxpayer fails to file future returns.

Your intake form should capture:

A client who owes $80,000 but has filed every return on time for 20 years is a fundamentally different case from a client who owes $80,000 and has not filed in six years. The intake form is where you make that distinction.

Estimated Liability and Financial Disclosure

You cannot advise a tax client without understanding the numbers. At intake, you need at least a rough picture of the total liability and the client's ability to pay.

On the liability side, capture: total estimated federal tax debt (by year if possible), total estimated state tax debt, whether the amounts include penalties and interest, and whether the client disputes the underlying assessment or only the collection action.

On the financial side, the IRS uses Form 433-A (Collection Information Statement for Wage Earners and Self-Employed Individuals) and Form 433-B (for businesses) to evaluate a taxpayer's ability to pay. While you will not complete a full 433-A at intake, your intake form should capture the basics that let you triage the case:

This financial snapshot tells you at a glance whether the client is a candidate for an offer in compromise, a partial-pay installment agreement, currently-not-collectible status, or a full-pay resolution. It also lets you identify potential levy targets — the IRS is going to look at the same assets you are. The IRS compares these numbers against its own Allowable Living Expense standards (national and local), so capturing actuals at intake lets you gauge the gap between what the client spends and what the IRS will allow.

Power of Attorney — Form 2848

Representation before the IRS requires a valid Form 2848 on file with the Centralized Authorization File (CAF) unit. Your intake process should capture the information needed to prepare Form 2848 immediately after engagement:

Getting the 2848 filed promptly matters. Until it is processed, the IRS will not speak with you, and the client remains exposed to direct IRS contact — which almost never goes well for the client. Fax to the CAF unit the same day if possible; processing typically takes 5–7 business days.

Hard Deadlines — CDP Hearings and Tax Court Petitions

Two deadlines in tax practice are jurisdictional and cannot be extended:

Collection Due Process (CDP) hearing requests must be filed within 30 days of the date on the notice of intent to levy or notice of federal tax lien filing. Miss this window and the taxpayer loses the right to an independent Appeals Office review and, critically, the right to petition Tax Court from an adverse CDP determination. An equivalent hearing request can still be filed within one year, but it does not carry Tax Court rights and does not suspend collection during the hearing.

Tax Court petitions must be filed within 90 days of the date on a notice of deficiency (150 days if the notice is addressed to a person outside the United States). This is a statutory deadline under IRC 6213. There is no extension, no excusable neglect, no equitable tolling. If the 90th day falls on a weekend or holiday, the deadline moves to the next business day — but that is the only flexibility the statute offers.

Your intake form must prominently capture: the date on any notice of deficiency or CDP notice, the calculated response deadline, and whether a response has already been filed. If a client walks in on day 85 of a 90-day window, everything else takes a back seat.

Criminal Exposure Screening

This is the section most intake forms get wrong — either by omitting it entirely or by asking questions that are too direct for a client who may not understand the implications. Criminal tax exposure exists in cases involving willful failure to file (IRC 7203), tax evasion (IRC 7201), filing a false return (IRC 7206), and related offenses.

At intake, screen for red flags rather than asking the client to self-diagnose:

If any of these flags are present, the matter requires a different posture — potentially including a Kovel letter arrangement, a voluntary disclosure submission, or an immediate referral to a criminal tax defense specialist. The intake form should note these flags clearly so they are not lost in the file.

Practitioners handling tax matters that overlap with bankruptcy filings should also screen for the dischargeability of tax debts under 11 U.S.C. 523(a)(1) — the three-year, two-year, and 240-day rules — which requires the same filing-date and assessment-date information captured above. And for clients whose tax issues arise from complex trust or estate structures, the considerations outlined in our estate planning intake guide may overlap with fiduciary tax return obligations.

State Tax Matters

Federal tax issues often come with state-level counterparts, and clients do not always volunteer this information. Your intake form should ask explicitly whether the client has any state tax obligations, notices, or liabilities — and if so, which state agency is involved and what type of tax (income, sales, payroll, franchise). State statutes of limitation, collection powers, and resolution options vary widely, and a client who is resolving a federal liability while ignoring a state assessment is not actually resolving their problem. For clients whose tax issues arise from a new business venture, the entity structure choices covered in our corporate formation intake guide — particularly the S-Corp election timing and pass-through vs. C-Corp tax treatment — often intersect directly with the resolution strategy.

Putting It All Together

A tax law intake form is not a client questionnaire — it is a triage instrument. It should tell the attorney, within minutes of reviewing it, what type of matter this is, what deadlines are in play, whether there is criminal exposure, whether the client is in compliance, and whether the financial picture supports the resolution strategy the client is hoping for.

The best intake forms also serve as a risk management tool. If a deadline was missed, the intake form documents when the client first contacted you and what information was provided. If a client later claims they told you about a CID contact that you have no record of, the intake form is your first line of defense.

Building this from scratch takes time. A purpose-built tax law intake form — one that already includes fields for matter type, statute dates, notice tracking, compliance history, financial snapshot, POA information, deadline calculations, and criminal exposure screening — eliminates the guesswork and ensures nothing falls through the cracks on the first day. If your firm handles multiple legal practice areas, the Legal Bundle gives you intake forms across 38 practice areas that share the same structure and format — so the tax form fits seamlessly alongside your other practice area forms.

Tax law intake forms — $19.99 complete set

Fillable PDF intake form and client questionnaire built for tax controversy practice. Covers IRS audits, collections, offers in compromise, unfiled returns, CDP deadlines, and criminal exposure screening.

View Tax Law Forms

The complete set includes both the internal intake form (for attorney use during the initial consultation) and the client questionnaire (for the client to complete and sign, with authorization for representation and document requests). Both are fillable PDFs that work in any PDF reader. Also available as part of the Legal Bundle — all 38 legal form sets at a significant discount.