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IRS Passport Revocation: How They Work and How to Get Them Reversed
Video Transcript
Hi everyone this is Parham Khorsandi Attorney at Law at Victory Tax Lawyers Welcome to our YouTube channel we are going to be talking today about the IRS and how they can impact your travel by denying you a passport so this is a really hot topic uh people who reach out to us a lot of times that's one of their major concerns they have a wedding to go to out of the country they're traveling with their family but they cannot renew their passport and so we'll go through this now and kind of figure out what it all means get into the details of it and provide some some information to everybody so this all started in 2015 under uh President Obama and the fast act and what the fast act said is if you have a a major or significant or serious delinquent tax debt the the IRS will report that to the state department uh and so what the law turned into in practice is a serious delinquent tax that results in somebody who owes more than fifty thousand dollars and if you owe more than fifty thousand dollars and the IRS is trying to collect from you what ends up happening is the IRS will report this to the state department and state department will send you a letter saying hey you owe the IRS money we are blocking you from getting a passport and so what it doesn't mean and I just want to be clear about this what it doesn't mean is if you're off Shore or you're overseas it doesn't mean that they're going to stop you at customs and you can't get back into the country that's a major concern that's not what it means it also doesn't mean that you can't travel what it specifically means and what it specifically does is if you don't have a passport or you've lost your passport or your passport has expired and you need to renew it and you basically need to get a new passport for any of those reasons the state department can block you from obtaining that passport so if you already have a valid passport you're you're sitting pretty you're doing fine if you've lost it or you're applying for a new passport or renewing your passport and the state department has you on their list you will not be able to renew it so that's how it is in practice now you will get a notice from the IRS and also get a notice from the state department saying that you're on this list and that you're you're seriously delinquent and they put a block on your passport uh and there's a few ways to get you off of that list and stop the block and so the easiest and fastest way for the most part is setting up an installment agreement with the IRS once you're in a pending installment agreement status with the IRS they IRS within 30 days will send information to the state department and the state department will send you a letter basically saying hey you're clear and you can go ahead and renew if you file bankruptcy that's another way that you can get this reversed if you file an IRS Offer in Compromise you can get this reversed and if you are in a hardship status or currently non-collectible that's another way to get this reversed so a lot of our clients come to us with travel plans and imminent travel plans and our job is to get them on to one of these statuses whether it's a hardship or installment agreement and let the IRS know there's imminent travel and then work with the IRS to expedite uh the passport release so that our clients can get their passport and travel again so it is a major thing that people are dealing with and our office can definitely help if someone is is in that situation luckily you know you're never going to be held in overseas in customs and and they're never going to block you from entering the country if you have a valid passport but if you need to renew and the IRS has gotten window that you owe them money fifty thousand dollars or more this can become a serious issue uh if you guys need help feel free to reach out to us we do have an article on this on our blog it's victorytaxlaw.com there's a whole blog section we probably have a hundred articles written one or two of the Articles specifically talks about this situation again victorytaxlaw.com for more information and uh hopefully we'll have other videos up and you guys can can get some information on the IRS
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This content was written and reviewed by the licensed tax attorneys at Victory Tax Lawyers, LLP. Our attorneys specialize in IRS tax relief and are licensed members of the California State Bar with a nationwide practice.
Last Reviewed: 2026 · Meet Our Attorneys →