Hi all, I’ve browsed around a bit, but am a bit confused about how this might affect me and if there are any actions beyond the obvious I should take to help with the process. I’ve received a job offer for a role that involves an SF-85P, but I’m a few years behind on filing returns. I shouldn’t have any tax debt owed, and embarrassingly enough I didn’t really realize that filing was as big of a deal if you didn’t owe anything extra. The last time I filed was in 2021, and I was also behind, and submitted because I was buying a house and my agent said I needed to have a few years of returns for the lender to see, which made sense.
Obviously I’m heading to HR Block as soon as I can get all my paperwork together to file a bunch as soon as I can, and I’m planning to be totally upfront about this on my application as well as expressing that I understand the need to consistently file every year going forward. I don’t know what I don’t know about the process, though, is there anything I should be aware of or do proactively to put myself in the best position here?
For what it’s worth, I should be pretty clean otherwise. No criminal history, no traffic citations for over 8 years, very high credit score, no drug use past college (over a decade ago), etc. My only other negative mark would be that my last job was terminated for performance, but it was more the “not timely with following up” side, not “can’t do the job”.
I really appreciate any feedback or information from people with infinitely more experience about the process than me.
If it was for a clearance, I wouldn’t bother, but they’re not as strict with Public Trust. I’m thinking you probably still will need some time to mitigate. Maybe after you file all your late returns and get up to date so you can have all the documentation from the IRS in hand. It may take a year or 2 for all that. But you can certainly give it a go now and see what happens.
And just be ready for a lot of “why did you not file for so many years?” and “do you think you’re above the law?” questions.
Your credit score does not factor into the process at all.
Not filing taxes is an issue, especially if it’s a “pattern”. 5 years is a pattern. Show that you have taken steps to mitigate it, be prepared to answer the “why” questions and if cleared do not miss that annual deadline again.
Not filing taxes for 5 years is definitely an issue for individuals placed Public Trust positions which are held to a higher standard of integrity and trustworthiness. Here is an example case:
Although the case cited is captioned as a “Public Trust Position;” it is actually for a sensitive national security position. Public Trust positions are not sensitive national security positions. DOHA does not adjudicate eligibility for Public Trust positions and their administrative judges (AJs) often mischaracterize ADP I or ADP II, which are either critical sensitive or non-critical sensitive national security positions, as “Public Trust Positions.” It seems that the problem originated with a 19 November 2004 DUSD(C&S) memo to DOHA, Subject: “Adjudication of Trustworthiness Cases,” which used the words, “trustworthiness determination, to include those involving ADP I, II and III positions.” Somehow this got transmuted into “Positions of Public Trust” and later to “Public Trust Positions.” I wrote an article 3 years ago explaining the problem with DOHA misidentifying these cases as involving eligibility to hold a Public Trust position. Apparently some DOHA AJs are still getting it wrong.
You may be missing Marko’s point. Bottom line is any job requiring form SF 85 or 86 is held to higher scrutiny on federal regs than most private sector jobs, and one of the top no-no’s on their list is not filing taxes.
I didn’t miss the point. I understand fully the relevance of failure to file/pay taxes for all 3 federal personnel vetting programs. I just corrected the example cited to illustrate the point.
oops… PS. If your returns are not simple, in other words you have rental property from several years or some side hustle Schedule C business, or a big stock market loss, you may need to start with 2022 first so information properly carries forward to each year.
I’m a licensed tax pro. I recommend you file in this order: 2025 first to show current year compliance. If you owe, pay when you file.
Then 2022 next (any refund you may get disappears 4/15/26 which has no relevance to your application or Public Trust), then 2023 and 2024. Hopefully your returns are simple.
If you need tax documents, login or create an IRS account using ID.me to verify. Once created, you can get all Wage & Income transcripts for these missing years which will be used in tax prep. HRB is fine to use. Every legit tax prep person or firm is slammed with 2025 tax return prep, be prepared to sit an wait in an HRB lobby if you can’t get an appointment.