For years, the three major credit reporting agencies (Experian, Equifax and TransUnion) have been including tax liens and civil judgments on credit reports—which obviously have had negative implications on credit scores. But recent efforts by consumer advocacy groups, citing numerous errors resulting from this practice, finally convinced these agencies to stop doing so.
As of July 1, 2017, these agencies started enforcing stricter rules on the public records they collect and report, now only reporting public records containing the person’s name, address and either Social Security Number or Date of Birth. Since neither Social Security Numbers nor birth dates are included on Notices of Federal Tax Lien, these should no longer be included on future credit reports. Hence, if you have had a Notice of Federal Tax Lien filed against you, you should soon see them drop from your credit report, with the consequential increase in your overall credit score.
When you will see the effect is still somewhat unknown, but it should be relatively soon.
There are, however, other ways to have Notices of Federal Tax Liens removed from the public record—specifically, lien withdrawal. If these liens are keeping you from buying or selling an asset, or from obtaining a needed loan, call the attorneys at Anderson & Jahde, P.C. to see if you might be eligible for one of these programs.