Free tax help for the new season

If the financial events of year-end 2008 weren't punishing enough, now there's the 2009 tax season looming. To ease the burden, two major players have announced programs to help taxpayers:

Free online tax help through January. Intuit, maker of TurboTax, is offering free answers by live tax experts to federal tax questions through January 31. You can access the service by posting a question on  www.freetaxquestion.com. A live tax expert is supposed to call you with a response within 24 hours. You can't just ask anything, however; your question must be limited to issues related to Individual Form 1040 and business returns Forms 1065, 1120 and 1120S. The experts also won't answer questions about state tax returns. And it appears that TurboTax experts will only answer one question per customer. But what the heck--try it. And post your comments here to let us know about your experience.

IRS relaxes some rules for distressed taxpayers. Today the IRS announced several programs to aid victims of the nation's financial train wreck. They include:

• Postponement of collection actions: IRS employees will have greater authority to suspend collection actions in certain hardship cases where taxpayers are unable to pay.

• Added flexibility for missed tax payments: If you have an installment agreement with the IRS and have been good at paying until now, the IRS may be more lenient if you're suddenly having trouble paying due to financial hardship. The IRS now may allow a skipped payment or a reduced monthly payment amount without automatically suspending the installment agreement. But you'll have to contact the agency directly to discuss your particular situation.

•   Additional review for offers in compromise on home values:  An offer in compromise (OIC), an agreement that settles the taxpayer’s federal tax debt for less than the full amount owed, is very hard to get. Declining home equity is yet another barrier to the IRS's acceptance of an OIC. So in instances where the accuracy of local real-estate valuations is in question or other unusual hardships exist, the IRS is creating a new second review of the information to determine if accepting an offer is appropriate.

There are other changes, too. Click here for more news, and check a new section on the IRS Home page called "What If?" It covers tax consequences of common current issues such as job loss, selling a home in foreclosure, and withdrawing money early from an IRA.

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