statute of limitations

What is the name of your state? new york my husband filed his 1992 taxes with h&r block before april 15,1993. the irs is claiming my husband never claimed a pension check for $4,000 and now the irs has put a bank levy on our checking acct for double the amount (interest and penalties). my husband insists he gave every document and paperwork to h&r block to file his taxes. we know the statute of limitations is 10 years for the irs to collect taxes and the assessment date is only a month or two away. should he wait until then to declare the 10 year law and write to the irs telling them to "write off" this account? also, does h&r block take any blame in this tax filing error or are they exempt once you sign your tax forms? please help

I am certainly NO expert when it comes to communicating with the IRS because I believed what they told me years ago and now it has forced me into BK.
What I will tell you is to hire an enrolled agent at least or an attorney that specializes in tax law to seek advise.
Either those RAT B^stards at the IRS 1. Don't know what they are talking about or 2. Out and out lie to people like us that call for advise. The enrolled agent I initially used only charged me $50 per hour of service and it was the best $ ever spent. He was unable to help me in my particular situation but at least he pointed me to an attorney that got $72,000 in debt reduced to $1700 in a chapter 13 BK.

Whether Block is responsible for any money depends on the guarantee you got when they prepared the return. Take all the IRS letters to them immediately. They have an EA who can talk to the IRS for you & perhaps argue that the statute of limitations ran out before the IRS assessed the tax.

so what i'm trying to understand is, the irs has 10 years to collect any balances due but, however, they only have 3 years to change a tax return once it is filed? if they assessed his tax before 1996, the 10 year statute doesn't come into play?

Correct. The IRS makes this 'mistake' from time to time, but they will not correct it on their own. The statute of limitations in an 'affirmative defense', which means you have to assert it to receive its protections.

Call the district office where you live, take all the papers you have concerning this tax year. H&R Block has licensed EA's (enrolled agents) whou should be able to straighten this out for you.

I'm curious - when did they first notify you. You probably should have contacted Block right then. Don't they send two or three letters before they do an assessment.

Did your husband actually get the 4000 out of pension. There should be a 1099-R somewhere