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Licensed Tax Attorneys & CPAs · A+ BBB Accredited · Free Consultation
I'm Logan Allec, CPA — I've reviewed dozens of tax-relief companies, and I founded my own to do it right. If you owe the IRS $10,000 or more, my team will review your case free and tell you exactly where you stand — no pressure, no obligation.
Get My Free Consultation →Free & confidential · Or call 866-8000-TAX
Disclosure: Choice Tax Relief is owned by Money Done Right founder Logan Allec, CPA.
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Tax Relief Helpers- Basics: Tax Relief Helpers is a small Encino, California firm with an A+ BBB letter grade and a complaint record well ahead of its reviews: 34 complaints closed in three years, 20 in the trailing twelve, against 16 customer reviews.
- Pros: Charges no upfront fees, a real departure from the retainer-first standard
- Cons: 34 BBB complaints in three years against 16 reviews, 20 in the last year
- FREE CONSULTATION:
Yes, a free 10 to 20 minute call
- YEAR FOUNDED:
2023 (BBB record)
- BBB RATING:
A+ · 3.63/5 (16 reviews)
- GUARANTEE:
None found
Tax Relief Helpers is a small Encino, California firm with an A+ BBB letter grade and a complaint record well ahead of its reviews: 34 complaints closed in three years, 20 in the trailing twelve, against 16 customer reviews.
The direction concerns me. All ten 5-star BBB reviews date from August 2023 to July 2024; all five 1-star reviews date from May 2025 to April 2026. In its favor, the company charges no upfront fees, a real differentiator. What you do not get is a price, a guarantee, or any way to verify who handles your case.
Disclosure: Money Done Right founder Logan Allec, CPA, owns Choice Tax Relief, which competes with the company reviewed here. That is exactly why the scorecard above is based on published, verifiable evidence rather than opinion.
- BBB Accredited: A+ Rating
- Owned by a CPA: Logan Allec, CPA
- Free Consultation: 100% Free, No Obligation
- Minimum Debt: Works with $10,000+
Table of Contents
Tax Relief Helpers At a Glance
| Free Consultation | Yes, a free 10 to 20 minute call |
| Fee Structure | Not published; states it charges no upfront fees |
| Money-Back Guarantee | None found on the site |
| BBB Rating | A+ grade; 3.63 out of 5 from 16 reviews |
| Year Founded | 2023 (BBB record) |
Who Tax Relief Helpers Is
BBB lists the legal name as Tax Relief Helpers, LLC, also listed as Tax Relief Helpers, Inc. Its BBB business start date is February 27, 2023, three years in business. Vanessa Oakes is listed as president, a name absent from the company’s own site.
BBB gives the headquarters as 15910 Ventura Blvd, Suite 600, Encino, California 91436. The company’s own contact page publishes phone numbers and no address. It claims “45+ states” without publishing the list.
The “since 2014” question
Marketing references activity “since 2014,” and staff bios cite up to 17 years of experience. The entity’s BBB start date is February 2023. Both can be true, and the fair reading is that they are: the bios describe individual careers, not the company’s founding.
What you should not do is read “since 2014” as a claim about the firm’s own track record. The entity you would sign with is three years old. Judge it on three years.
Credentials you cannot verify
The team is published by first name only, with no last names and no license numbers: “Jordan, Tax Attorney”; “Neyla, Enrolled Agent”; “Christine, Customer Service/Resolution Manager”; “Monica, Tax Prep Team.”
State bars, state accountancy boards, and the IRS enrolled agent directory are all public and searchable, and all three need a full name. That is not an accusation, and one call closes the gap: ask for a full legal name and license number, then check it.
Headcount claims also contradict. The About page says “75+ employees,” the contact page says “over 90 employees,” and the homepage’s animated counters render as “0+ qualified employees” without JavaScript. The zeroes are a coding artifact; the gap between its own two figures is not.
Services Offered
Tax Relief Helpers advertises a full slate of federal collection work: offer in compromise, currently not collectible status, penalty abatement, the IRS Fresh Start Program, installment agreements and partial payment installment agreements, tax refund offset protection, tax identity theft and fraud resolution, innocent spouse relief, audit representation, wage garnishment release, and liens and levies.
It also offers accounting, bookkeeping, tax preparation, and LLC formation, which matters because most collection cases cannot move until every required return is filed. Its California page covers Franchise Tax Board back taxes and audit defense.
How Does Tax Relief Helpers Work?
The company publishes no stage-by-stage process. Here is what it does publish, alongside what each stage involves.
Stage 1: The free consultation
The free consultation is described as a 10 to 20 minute call. Nobody can tell you what you qualify for in that time, because nobody knows before seeing your IRS account. Treat it as a sales conversation.
Stage 2: Pulling your IRS record
Building a case requires knowing what the IRS has: unfiled years, assessed balances, filed liens, and how close the collection statute is to expiring. That comes out of your transcripts.
Stage 3: The resolution
The work is then negotiating a collection alternative: an installment agreement, currently not collectible status, an offer in compromise, penalty abatement, or a combination. The company says it only charges if it can help, implying it turns away cases it cannot improve.
The “TRH Insider Advantage,” translated
The About page promotes “The TRH Insider Advantage,” described as a proprietary system for accessing your “tax rap sheet,” and states that “having a direct phone line and contact network in the appropriate governmental departments helps us to solve your tax problems faster.”
That deserves a careful answer, because it is the claim most likely to move a frightened taxpayer. Nothing about it is illegal; the reality is just more ordinary than the language implies.
There is no insider channel at the IRS. No back door, no private list, no queue you get moved up in for knowing someone. There is a published set of practitioner tools, and every enrolled agent, CPA, and tax attorney in the country has identical access:
- Form 2848, Power of Attorney and Declaration of Representative. You sign it, the firm files it, and the IRS recognizes that person as authorized to act on your account. Same door, every firm.
- The Practitioner Priority Service line. An IRS phone line reserved for credentialed representatives and published by the IRS. It is not a private number obtained through a contact network. A “direct phone line” into the IRS describes PPS, which makes a firm normal, not special.
- IRS e-Services transcript access. With a valid Form 2848 on file, a representative pulls your account, wage and income, and return transcripts electronically, usually in minutes. That is the “tax rap sheet,” and any authorized practitioner retrieves the same one.
None of that is proprietary. It is the floor of the profession, not a competitive edge, and nobody gets your case decided faster because of a relationship. What separates good work from bad is whether your representative calculates your collection potential correctly, catches a miscalculated collection statute expiration date, and follows up when the IRS goes quiet.
Tax Relief Helpers Cost
Tax Relief Helpers publishes no fee schedule, hourly rate, flat fee, or retainer amount. You learn your number on a sales call, so you cannot comparison-shop. We hit the same wall reviewing Optima Tax Relief and Community Tax.
The no-upfront-fee policy
Here the company earns real credit. Its own language: “We don’t charge you upfront fees or ask you to subscribe or charge for services you don’t need.” And: “We only charge and work with you if we can help.”
The industry standard is a large investigation retainer collected before anyone opens your file, then a resolution fee once the firm has your money. Declining to collect first gives up the biggest source of consumer harm in this business. Get that promise in writing.
Guarantee and minimum debt
No money-back guarantee appears anywhere on the site, including the FAQ. A no-upfront-fee policy limits what you can lose; it is not a refund for fees already paid.
The company discloses no minimum debt requirement of its own. Its FAQ cites IRS Fresh Start thresholds, individuals under $50,000 payable within five years and businesses under $25,000 within 34 months, but those are IRS rules, not the firm’s policy.
Third-party sites publish price and minimum-debt figures that contradict one another and appear nowhere on the company’s own site, so we are not repeating them.
Tax Relief Helpers Complaints and Customer Reviews
Three separate BBB metrics get confused constantly. The letter grade is A+, accredited since October 18, 2023. A letter grade is not a satisfaction score. The BBB states that customer reviews are not used in calculating it, so the letter grade and the star rating are two separate measures of two different things.
The star rating is 3.63 out of 5, from 16 customer reviews: ten 5-star, one 3-star, five 1-star.
The complaint counts are a third thing: 34 closed in three years, 20 in the last twelve months. By category: Product Issues 12, Order Issues 11, Service/Repair 5, Billing 3, Sales/Advertising 2, Customer Service 1. Note the ratio against 16 reviews.
The trend matters more than the average
The 3.63 average tells you little, because the reviews are sorted in time rather than mixed. All ten 5-star reviews date from August 2023 to July 2024; all five 1-star reviews date from May 2025 to April 2026. Those early reviews describe a different operation than the one you would hire now.
What each side says
A 5-star reviewer, Nichol R., wrote on August 22, 2023: “They helped with a levy i had… i called them to help and they called the [creditor] and told them im in a hardship and negotiated it off.”
The negative pattern is work not happening. A BBB complaint dated January 30, 2026 reads: “NO tax returns have been filed on my behalf NO payments have been made to the [IRS] NO settlement negotiations have occurred.”
In fairness, the company responded that it was in direct communication with the client and working toward a resolution. BBB categorizes the 34 complaints as Product Issues (12), Order Issues (11), Service or Repair (5), Billing (3), Sales and Advertising (2) and Customer Service (1).
Other platforms
On Trustpilot the company holds 4.4 out of 5 from 58 reviews, a better picture than its BBB profile. Google and Yelp could not be accessed, so neither is cited. As employee rather than customer sentiment, Glassdoor shows 2.7 out of 5 from 8 reviews, 32 percent recommending the workplace. That tiny sample matters only because those reviews describe a lead-driven commission structure.
Is Tax Relief Helpers Legit?
It is a real, registered business with a headquarters on file, a named president, and BBB accreditation. It is not a phantom operation.
Here is what was searched: FTC enforcement actions, including the 2025 FTC and Nevada tax relief action, which we confirmed names entirely different companies; California Attorney General actions; and lawsuit and licensing discipline searches. Nothing was found naming Tax Relief Helpers.
That is a finding about the searches, not a certification. CFPB records and state incorporation filings could not be verified, so this review does not claim a clean record. The risk here is the recent complaint pattern.
Tax Relief Helpers Pros and Cons
Pros
- Charges no upfront fees, a real departure from the retainer-first standard
- Free consultation plus a text line
- A+ BBB grade; 4.4 out of 5 on Trustpilot from 58 reviews
- Advertises tax preparation and bookkeeping alongside resolution work, so unfiled years can be handled by the same firm
- No FTC, California AG, or lawsuit records naming it
Cons
- 34 BBB complaints in three years against 16 reviews, 20 in the last year
- Every 1-star review is recent; every 5-star review is older
- No money-back guarantee, and no prices published at all
- Staff listed by first name only, so credentials cannot be verified
- Employee counts contradict; no address published
- Markets standard IRS practitioner access as a proprietary “Insider Advantage”
Alternatives to Tax Relief Helpers
Disclosure: Money Done Right founder Logan Allec, CPA, owns Choice Tax Relief, which competes with the company reviewed here. That is exactly why the scorecard above is based on published, verifiable evidence rather than opinion.
| Tax Relief Helpers | 🏆OUR PICK🏆 Choice Tax Relief |
Optima Tax Relief | Community Tax | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
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| Free Consultation | Yes, a free 10 to 20 minute call | Yes, a free consultation; no length published | Yes | Yes |
| Fee Structure | Not published; states it charges no upfront fees | Not published; publishes a $10,000 minimum debt, unlike the others | Two-stage: investigation fee, then resolution fee. Amounts not published | Describes flat, fixed pricing. Amounts not published |
| Money-Back Guarantee | None found on the site | None published | 15-day refund of the investigation fee only. Fees for later phases are expressly excluded | No money-back terms published, only a general satisfaction statement |
| BBB Rating | A+ grade; 3.63 out of 5 from 16 reviews | A+ grade, accredited 5/31/2022; separately 5 out of 5 from 1 customer review; 0 complaints on file | A+ grade, accredited 6/18/2012; separately 4.07 out of 5 from 1,987 reviews; 788 complaints in three years | A+ grade, accredited 7/1/2015; separately 4.21 out of 5 from 142 reviews; 35 complaints in three years |
Choice Tax Relief is owned by Logan Allec, CPA. It states that it is staffed by CPAs and tax attorneys and works with taxpayers owing roughly $10,000 or more. We did not independently verify staff licensure at Choice, Optima or Community Tax for this review, so nothing in this table is a credential comparison. See our full Choice Tax Relief review.
Notice what the table cannot tell you. Every one of these companies declines to publish an actual price, so all you can compare in advance is the guarantee terms. Read the star ratings with their review counts attached. Choice’s 5 out of 5 rests on a single BBB review; Optima’s 4.07 rests on 1,987. Those are not comparable samples, and the complaint counts scale with client volume too.
Who Tax Relief Helpers Is Best For
- Taxpayers who refuse to pay a retainer upfront and will get that in writing
- People with unfiled returns wanting preparation and resolution under one roof
- California residents facing Franchise Tax Board balances as well as IRS balances
- Anyone willing to demand names, license numbers, and a flat quote first
Who Tax Relief Helpers Is Not For
- Anyone who needs a money-back guarantee, because none is published
- Anyone weighing a long firm track record, since the entity is three years old
- Taxpayers who will not follow up, given recent complaints about slow progress
- Anyone whose decision rests on the “insider access” pitch
Final Thoughts
Tax Relief Helpers offers what most competitors do not: no fee collected upfront. Honored as written, that removes the largest financial risk in hiring a tax relief company.
Against it sits a record moving the wrong way. Twenty of 34 complaints closed in the last twelve months, every 1-star review is recent, and every 5-star review is old. You would be extending real trust to a three-year-old entity that is hard to check.
If you engage this firm, verify your representative’s license number, get a flat dollar quote in writing, and keep your own follow-up calendar.
Outcomes in tax resolution depend entirely on your individual circumstances, including your income, assets, filing history, and the years at issue, and no firm can guarantee a specific result.
Frequently Asked Questions
- Is Tax Relief Helpers legit?
- How much does Tax Relief Helpers cost?
- Does Tax Relief Helpers charge upfront fees?
- Does Tax Relief Helpers have a money-back guarantee?
- How long has Tax Relief Helpers been in business?
- What is Tax Relief Helpers’ BBB rating?
- Does Tax Relief Helpers have special access at the IRS?
Still deciding who to trust with your IRS debt?
Here's what I'd do: before you hire anyone, get a free case review from a licensed CPA. My team at Choice Tax Relief will tell you what your options actually are and what it should cost — even if you don't hire us.
Get My Free Case Review →For $10,000+ in IRS back taxes · Free & confidential · Or call 866-8000-TAX
Author:
Logan is a practicing CPA and founder of Choice Tax Relief and of course Money Done Right. After spending nearly a decade in the corporate world helping big businesses save money, he launched his blog with the goal of helping everyday Americans earn, save, and invest more money. Learn more about Logan.
Reviewer:
Logan is a practicing CPA and founder of Choice Tax Relief and of course Money Done Right. After spending nearly a decade in the corporate world helping big businesses save money, he launched his blog with the goal of helping everyday Americans earn, save, and invest more money. Learn more about Logan.
