Taxpayer owes about $40K for 2016 and 2017. Liens filed and NOD for 16/17 were mailed in March.
2018 and 2019 have not yet been filed. Taxpayer spoke to Collections in June and promised the missing returns by July. I have not yet spoken to Collections.
Do the missing returns need to be filed before I can file the 12153?
Tom, yes they should be filed before the 12153. Now if they are not you can always get them done and file them before the hearing notice comes out from appeals, but if the appeals officer gets assigned the case and does not see the returns on file they may just kill it. So if you really need to, file the 12153 and then hurry up and get the 18 and 19 returns done so they are filed. Also make sure he made his 2020 estimates so he is in compliance.