tax reduction?

[valk]

I was wondering if there was any way to get a tax reduction on income taxes owed? I have heard that if you get a tax lawyer you can get a great deal off the total owed.
Mostly what is owed is from a business that has went bankrupt. My boyfriend took out an sba loan for $250,0000.00
lost his home that he sold for $230,000.00 plus some stocks to pay that off, all his savings went into holding the business togather longer. He has no money left and he owes taxes on the business in the area of $50,000.00 (state of Georgia) plus another $10,000.00 in inheretance tax for which he cashed in and put into the business ( state of S. Carolina) He has no job now or money (very little) We pay $100.00 a month on the $10,000.00 taxes but at the end of the year the total owed ends up at $11,500.00, so it never gets paid off, every year we end up owing more.
We have no way to make a deal payoff of less like agreeing on a $6,000.00 payoff. We barely make the $100.00 every month.
It is hard to even think about the money it would cost to hire a lawyer to get a reduction.
Is there any way to either get the taxes off cause the business went bankrupt? or halt the interest rate so we can pay it off? Or any information that can help?
He isn't even working now, he is looking for employment but he is in a hard field to find work, he also has arthritis very bad and can't do alot of jobs that normal people can do. so that limits our options to ever make enough to pay this off in this life time!!!
Thank-you,
valk

I am unclear on whether the $50,000 in tax is owed to the State of Georgia or to the federal government as income tax. If it is federal income tax, it sounds like you would probably qualify for an Offer In Compromise (OIC). There are a lot of details to it, but if you show an very severe inability to pay due to hardship under their rules, then they will compromise the amount of the claim, sometimes for pennies on the dollar, sometimes for more depending on how much it would be possible for them to collect under their guidelines. Offers must be presented on Form 656,Offer in Com- promise.(A blank copy is available on the IRS ’ website at [url]http://www.irs.ustreas.gov/forms_pubs/index.html.[/url] If you intend to try this, I highly recommend a book from NOLO press that will be invaluable to you in trying for the OIC. It is “When You Owe the IRS: Keeping the Tax Collector at Bay.” You can download an electronic copy of the book for a very reasonable price at [url]http://www.nolo.com/product/SIRSAC/summary_SIRSAC.html?t=00210001603202000TopicID*16.[/url]


As for the taxes owed to the states, most states have some sort of program for offers in compromise in hardship cases. If you post exactly which state taxes are involved, perhaps we can give you more specific help with that.