Tax Arrears - The Accounts Are Frozen, Interest Runs Every Day and the Business Has to Keep Working
Tax arrears differ from other debts in one respect: the Revenue Service does not need a court. Recognised arrears are enforced directly by freezing accounts, collection orders and liens over property, and a company that cannot pay a year-end assessment often wakes up one morning with frozen accounts and no way to pay wages or suppliers. At that point the question is no longer whether the assessment is correct but whether the business survives.
This page describes the tools for managing arrears: which enforcement measure means what and how each is lifted, how an instalment plan is obtained with the accounts unfrozen, when interest and fines are reduced or cancelled, how hopeless arrears are written off and when limitation applies, and when a company's arrears become the director's or a partner's personal debt. Appealing the assessment itself and insolvency proceedings are on separate pages.
Updated · Practice area: Tax lawyer
What the Revenue Service Does About Recognised Arrears - and How Each Measure Is Lifted
Enforcement measures apply in sequence and on deadlines, and each has a statutory precondition whose breach makes the measure challengeable.
From Frozen Accounts to a Working Business - The Stages
Analysing the structure of the arrears
What the arrears consist of: principal on which tax and period, fines, interest; which part is recognised and which still disputed; limitation on each part. Often half the arrears is interest, which can be reduced, or a time-barred part that should not be there at all.
Checking the lawfulness of the measures
Was the demand served? Has the deadline expired? Was the freeze limited to the amount or were all accounts blocked in full? Was a measure applied to a disputed (appealed) sum? A procedural breach is a ground for lifting the measure and an argument in negotiation.
Applying for instalments or deferral
A reasoned application with the financial position, a payment schedule and an offer of security, often with a first instalment. Agreement unfreezes the accounts or limits the attachment and lets the business work. The lawyer builds the schedule on real cash flow; a breached schedule cancels the agreement.
Reducing interest and fines
Grounds under the law and practice: limitation, an amended return, force majeure, an error by the tax authority, a first breach, a tax settlement with the Minister of Finance. The lawyer reduces this part of the arrears by a separate request, in parallel with paying the principal.
Write-off and limitation
Hopeless arrears (a liquidated company, no assets, limitation) are written off under the statutory procedure; enforcing time-barred arrears is unlawful. Tax amnesty and restructuring programmes are announced periodically; the lawyer matches their terms to the structure of the arrears.
Replacing security and normalising
A lien over business assets is replaced with a bank guarantee or less critical property; the accounts are opened; the agreed schedule is performed. The lawyer follows the process through to full closure of the arrears and a certificate from the Revenue Service.
A Company's Tax Arrears - When They Become the Director's or a Partner's Personal Debt
As a general rule a company's tax arrears are the company's: the Revenue Service recovers them from the company's accounts and assets and does not touch the director's or partners' personal property. But exceptions exist and are used more and more in practice: the director's administrative liability for certain breaches (returns, cash register, records), a criminal case for large-scale tax evasion (in which paying the arrears becomes the director's personal matter), and in insolvency proceedings the director's liability for obligations, tax included, that grew because the filing was late.
For a partner the risk is piercing the corporate veil: where the company form is abused (mixing company and personal assets, emptying the company to creditors' detriment, sham management) the court can hold the partner liable for the company's obligations. And one more: a dividend or property that left the company to a partner while tax arrears existed is recoverable; in insolvency proceedings those are the first transactions to be challenged.
Practical advice for a director: tax arrears are not "later than other debts"; their priority, the speed of enforcement and the risk of personal liability are higher than for other creditors. And "abandoning" a company with arrears is the worst option: the arrears remain, interest grows, the director stays in the registry and the exceptions, the grounds for personal liability, accumulate.
Instalments, Deferral, Settlement, Write-Off - What Each Gives You
- Instalments
- Payment of recognised arrears by schedule within the statutory maximum period, with or without security depending on the amount; interest still accrues during the schedule, but the accounts are opened. A breached schedule cancels the agreement and brings the measures back.
- Deferral
- Full postponement of payment for a set period, on grounds of force majeure, seasonality or sums due from the state (budget, tender). Rarer, but effective in certain businesses.
- Tax settlement
- An agreement with the Minister of Finance to pay part of the arrears (fine, interest, sometimes part of the principal) with the rest written off: one-off, final, on a reasoned application. The most effective tool for large arrears where the resources to pay exist.
- Write-off of hopeless arrears
- On statutory grounds: limitation, liquidation or death of the taxpayer, no assets after enforcement. It does not happen automatically; the lawyer files an application with documents proving the ground.
- Reduction of interest
- Interest accrued through the tax authority's fault (a late reply, a wrong assessment, a disputed sum) can be challenged; on the time-barred part it is void. A separate recalculation of interest is the first step in every arrears case.
- Amnesties and programmes
- The state periodically announces programmes to write off or reduce arrears for a certain period or category. The lawyer checks the current programmes and their terms; taxpayers often do not know about them.
What the Lawyer Needs to Start an Arrears Case
- The Revenue Service taxpayer card with the full structure of the arrears: taxes, periods, fines, interest, assessment dates.
- Tax demands and notices of enforcement measures (freeze, collection order, lien) with service dates, to check deadlines and lawfulness.
- Audit acts and the appeal history: which part is recognised, which disputed and at what stage.
- The company's financial position: balance sheet, cash flow, liabilities, assets, expected income, for the instalment and security proposal.
- The bank's notices of the freeze and debits, the history of payments to the budget, the list of wages and privileged payments.
- The history of sums received from the company by the director and partners (dividends, loans, property) during the arrears period, to assess the personal liability risk.
Three Arrears Cases
Accounts frozen over 480,000, the business working
A distributor could not pay an assessment after an audit; every account was frozen and wages stopped. Lawyer: recalculation of the arrears (30% of the interest had been charged on a disputed sum and was cancelled), an instalment application with an 18-month schedule, a first instalment and warehouse property as security, the accounts unfrozen in 9 days. The schedule was performed; the company trades on.
Time-barred arrears that "hung" for 7 years
A sole entrepreneur's 2017 assessment had grown to 40,000 with interest; the business had closed. Lawyer: analysis of the limitation period, confirmation that no enforcement measures were taken in the period, a write-off application on limitation. The arrears were written off in full; the Revenue Service does not do this on its own.
A director asked to pay the company's arrears "personally"
A company closed with 220,000 lari of tax arrears; the Revenue Service and then the prosecutor approached the former director. Lawyer: the arrears belong to the company, no grounds for personal liability (asset stripping, intent) existed since the assessment arose from an interpretive question; proof that the insolvency filing was timely. No criminal case was opened and the personal claim was dropped.
Questions About Tax Arrears
My accounts are frozen and wages cannot be paid. Do wages not have priority?
Wages generally rank ahead of tax obligations in the order of payment, but in a freeze the bank does not apply that automatically; a written request to the Revenue Service and the bank is needed to allow wage payments. The lawyer does this together with the instalment application so that wages go out even before the agreement.
I have appealed the assessment, yet my accounts were still frozen. Is that lawful?
Enforcement measures are generally not applied to a sum appealed within the deadline (a disputed sum) until the dispute ends, except where the tax authority requires security on a specific ground. A freeze over a disputed sum can be challenged and is usually lifted. The lawyer starts by establishing whether the arrears are recognised or disputed.
I have an instalment plan and one instalment was late. What happens?
A breach of the schedule is a ground for cancelling the agreement and restoring the measures, often automatically. If the delay is one-off and short, immediate payment and a written explanation often preserve the agreement; a new plan is hard to get. The lawyer builds the schedule on real cash flow from the start, with a buffer.
The company no longer exists but the arrears remain. Who pays?
A liquidated company's arrears, if the liquidation was done properly and the tax audit passed, are to be written off; an "abandoned" company (still in the registry) keeps and grows its arrears. The director and partners are liable only in the exceptions: asset stripping, intent, a late insolvency filing. The lawyer proves the absence of those exceptions and completes the company's closure correctly.
Is there a tax amnesty right now? How do I find out?
Programmes are announced periodically by law or government decision, for arrears of a certain period, category (for example fines and interest) or group of taxpayers, often on condition that the principal is paid. The lawyer checks current programmes and their deadlines at the start of every arrears case; missing a programme's deadline often means years of waiting.
Lawyers for Tax Arrears
In an arrears case the lawyer's value is speed: accounts unfrozen in days, interest recalculated, a schedule that gets performed and the personal liability risk closed. Within 15 minutes the coordinator connects you with a lawyer who regularly resolves arrears matters with the Revenue Service.
No published lawyers in this category yet
That does not mean we cannot help. Call us - we will match you with a specialist for a remote consultation or from a nearby city.
Call: 568 330 318Other Tax Law Services
Accounts Frozen, or a Tax Demand Served With the Clock Running?
In a free consultation the lawyer tells you which part of the arrears is really payable and which can be reduced or is time-barred, how to unfreeze the accounts within days, and which tool (instalments, settlement or write-off) fits your position - the coordinator's call reaches you inside 15 minutes.