This is for a friend of mine (honest, it's not me).
About 6 years ago she had a for-profit business and, according to her, an accountant made an error in preparing her tax returns which resulted in her owing the IRS and the State something like $10,000 plus interest and penalties. According to her, by the time she was cited as owing the back taxes the penalties, the total due was a lot more that $10,000. She said that since she didn't have the money to pay that amount, she just stopped filing tax returns (for approximately the past 6 years, up to and including the 2017 tax year). Meanwhile, somewhere around 4 or 5 years ago, the business was losing money and she closed the business. And, the IRS has since been sending her notices that she owes back taxes and penalties and interest etc.
I am not concerned about the question of whether it's true that the accountant made an error etc. That's ancient history, and my guess is that the story about how the accountant was the cause of the error is incorrect.
Meanwhile, fast forward to the present.
My friend recently filed a Chapter 13 bankruptcy because she has other debts and she is behind in her mortgage payments and her house is in foreclosure. Her bankruptcy attorney is submitting a Chapter 13 plan that will discharge most debts, work out a repayment plan with the bank regarding the mortgage, and pay off the IRS debt over a period of 3 to 5 years.
However, for the plan to be approved, she will first need to file all of her missing tax returns for the past 6 (+/-) years. The problem is that, although she does have W-2's etc. to enable her to have the past few years of tax returns prepared, she has very little in terms of records from the now-defunct business that she can use to have the past due business tax returns prepared and filed.
Here is my question:
Can she go to the nearest IRS office in person and obtain any kind of records that the IRS has for the past 6 years for her (individually) and for her business which shows who reported what income for her and her business to the IRS?
If so, that would at least give her and her a new account some needed information to prepare her tax returns for all of the missing years for herself and for her defunct business.
Thanks.