A humorous television commercial that ran years ago featured a man for whom the day had gone very badly. One thing after another went wrong for him; at the end, his young son came to him and said, “Telephone for you, Daddy! What does it mean, IRS?”

In the real world, of course, hearing from the IRS is seldom an occasion for amusement; especially when the subject of its communication with you is to accuse you of tax fraud.

Tax fraud is a criminal matter. If you are convicted of an activity like failing to report income or earnings, or violations of sales or payroll tax withholdings, or even money laundering, you could face heavy financial penalties and even jail time.

Unless you are already a tax expert — and probably even then — the one thing that you should not do if the IRS is threatening you with tax fraud is to take it on by yourself. The Internal Revenue Code is lengthy and extraordinarily complex.

When the IRS accuses you of violating that code, it is not only playing on its home field, but can also call upon the considerable resources of the federal government in pressing its case against you.

It’s a classic mismatch, Goliath versus David without his sling. In such a situation, you will almost certainly need an attorney as your advocate.

But not just any attorney will do. You need a law firm that has intimate awareness not only of the Internal Revenue Code and tax court decisions interpreting it, but also of how the IRS operates. What its strengths are — and its possible weak points. A good way to benefit from this kind of knowledge is to find an attorney who has worked as a federal prosecutor.

That is where we come in. Our firm includes attorneys with experience in federal prosecutions and we have defended against IRS tax fraud charges in the past. We can help you to defend against the same thing. If you want to know more about our firm, start with our tax fraud webpage.