Before the IRS levies your assets, and after it files a lien notice, federal law hands you a brake: the collection due process hearing, an independent review you trigger by request. It is among the strongest taxpayer rights in the code, it runs on a strict sequence, and using it well requires knowing each step in advance.
The Notice and the 30 Days
CDP rights arrive on specific notices - the Final Notice of Intent to Levy and the Notice of Federal Tax Lien Filing - each granting 30 days to request a hearing on Form 12153. A timely request does three things at once: it bars the levy action while the hearing is pending, it preserves Tax Court review of the outcome, and it pauses the collection statute - that last one being a real cost weighed in cases late on the 10-year clock, where the equivalent hearing alternative trades away the levy bar and court review to keep the statute running.
What the Hearing Actually Covers
The hearing - usually a phone call with a settlement officer - covers three territories. Procedure: whether the IRS followed its required steps, because levies built on broken notice trails fail. Alternatives: this is the main event, where installment agreements, offers in compromise, hardship status, and lien remedies get proposed and genuinely considered; the officer must weigh whether the collection action balances efficiency against intrusiveness. And in limited circumstances, the liability itself: if you never received a deficiency notice or had a prior chance to dispute the tax, the underlying debt is on the table - a rule that resurrects audit defenses for people whose mail never arrived.
Preparation looks like a resolution package: the financial statement built to the standards, the proposed alternative documented, compliance gaps closed first - because the officer cannot approve alternatives for non-filers, and arriving compliant is half the outcome.
The Determination and the Court
The hearing ends in a written determination, and an adverse one is reviewable in Tax Court within 30 days - the only routine path from a collection dispute into a courtroom, and the pressure that keeps the hearing honest. If a final notice just arrived, the 30-day window is open right now and worth a same-week decision about how to use it. Send it to me today.