Free IRS collection tool
What the IRS says you can live on
If you owe and cannot pay in full, the IRS does not begin by asking what you spend. It begins with its own published tables. This works out what those tables allow a household in your county, and what is left over.
Collection Financial Standards, effective June 29, 2026
The housing allowance is published county by county. It is the only part of this that moves when you move.
The IRS counts the people claimed as dependents on your most recent return.
The health care allowance is higher for them.
Vehicles
A public transportation allowance applies instead.
Two is the ceiling. The standards do not publish a third.
Everything before withholding. Leave it blank to see the allowance side on its own.
Allowed in the amount actually withheld, not from a table, so we cannot fill it in for you. Left at zero, the figure below is too generous.
Health insurance premiums, court ordered payments, child care, term life, secured debt. Allowed in the actual amount.
Monthly allowable living expenses
- Food, clothing, housekeeping, personal carenational
- $1,558
- Out of pocket health carenational
- $180
- Housing and utilitieslocal · Miami-Dade County, FL
- $2,906
- Vehicle ownershipnational
- $703
- Vehicle operatinglocal · Miami metro
- $423
- Total allowed each month
- $5,770
What is national and what is local
The food, clothing, health care and car payment allowances are the same figure in every county in the country. Housing, utilities and the running cost of the car are the only parts that change with where you live, and in most counties they are the larger share of the total.
58% of the allowance is decided by where you live.
Indicative monthly disposable income
Enter a gross monthly income above and this fills in.
Read this before you use the number
These are ceilings, not entitlements. For housing, utilities and the car, the IRS allows the standard OR what you actually spend, whichever is LESS. If you pay less rent than the standard, your allowance drops to what you pay and your disposable income goes UP. So the figure above is the most favourable version, not the likely one.
Who does what, plainly
WAYG prepares and analyses. We pull your transcripts, build the financial statement, and assemble the package. WAYG does not represent taxpayers before IRS Collections or Appeals. Representation is coordinated through contracted Enrolled Agents and CPAs under a signed engagement letter, at your request.
Nothing here is a prediction. No one can tell you what the IRS will accept, and anyone who does is selling something.
Where these numbers come from
Authority
- Food, clothing, housekeeping, personal care: IRC 7122(d)(2)(A); IRM 5.15.1.8, National Standards
- Out of pocket health care: IRC 7122(d)(2)(A); IRM 5.15.1.8, Out-of-Pocket Health Care
- Housing and utilities: IRC 7122(d)(2)(A); IRM 5.15.1.9, Local Standards, Housing and Utilities
- Vehicle ownership: IRC 7122(d)(2)(A); IRM 5.15.1.10, Transportation, Ownership Costs
- Vehicle operating: IRC 7122(d)(2)(A); IRM 5.15.1.10, Transportation, Operating Costs
- What the form does with this number: IRC 7122; Treas. Reg. 301.7122-1; IRM 5.8.5
Effective
June 29, 2026. The IRS republishes the whole set of tables periodically. When it does, every figure on this page changes at once, which is why they live in one register with a date on them.
Last confirmed against the IRS pages: 2026-08-30
Counties loaded: 42. Any other county returns no computation.
What this does not model
- The lesser of rule. This shows the standard, which is the ceiling. Where you spend less than the standard, the IRS allows what you spend.
- Assets. Cars, homes, retirement accounts, receivables and cash all feed the collection calculation and none of them are here.
- Any further operating allowance a revenue officer may permit for an older or high mileage vehicle.
- A third vehicle. The published table has a one car and a two car column and nothing beyond.
- State and local tax debt, which is negotiated separately and on different rules.
- Any facts and circumstances argument for exceeding a standard, which is where most real cases are actually won or lost.
This is an estimate
It is arithmetic on the figures you typed, using published standards. It is not tax advice, it is not a filing, and it is not a prediction of what the IRS will do.
Owe more than you can pay?
We start with the transcripts, so the first conversation is about what the IRS actually has on file rather than what the letter says. If representation is needed, we bring in an Enrolled Agent or CPA under a signed engagement letter.
The part that surprises people
Three of the four tables are national. Food, clothing, housekeeping and personal care come to $1,558 a month for a household of 2, in every county in the country. Out of pocket health care is $90 a person under 65. The vehicle payment allowance is $703 for one car in Manhattan and $703 for one car in rural Alabama.
Only two pieces move. Housing and utilities is published by the IRS county by county, and the running cost of the car is published by Census Region with a metro override. That is the whole geography of this calculation, and it stops at the county line.
Two Florida counties, one household
Take the same household of 2 with one car. In Miami-Dade the tables allow $5,770 a month. In Duval, four hours up the road, they allow $4,884. The gap is $886, and $754 of it is housing alone: $2,906 against $2,152. The rest is the car, because Miami-Dade sits in the Miami metro at $423 while Duval falls back to the South region at $291.
The national half, $2,441, is identical in both.
There is no city figure, and we will not invent one
The IRS publishes housing by county. It does not publish it by city, by ZIP or by municipality. Every city in Miami-Dade shares one number. Anyone showing you a Hialeah housing standard that differs from a Doral housing standard has made it up. What genuinely differs between those two cities is income, and that is the half that decides the answer.
These are ceilings, not entitlements
For housing, utilities and the car, the rule is the standard OR what you actually spend, whichever is LESS. Pay less rent than the standard and your allowance drops to the rent, and the amount you are treated as able to pay goes up. So the figure this tool shows is the most favourable version of your situation, not the likely one. The national standards are the exception: those you get in full without proving anything.
What happens to the number afterwards
On Form 656 the remaining monthly income is multiplied by 12 or by 24 depending on how fast the offer is paid, and then the net realizable equity in everything you own is added on top. That second half is usually the bigger half, and it is not in this tool at all. That is why we show the arithmetic and refuse to print an offer amount.
Who does what
WAYG prepares and analyses. We pull the transcripts, build the financial statement and assemble the package, which is most of the work and all of the parts that get people rejected. WAYG does not represent taxpayers before IRS Collections or Appeals. Representation is coordinated through contracted Enrolled Agents and CPAs under a signed engagement letter, at your request. Nobody here, and nobody anywhere, can tell you what the IRS will accept.
Counties we can answer for
The IRS publishes a figure for every county in the country. We have loaded 42, each confirmed twice against the IRS table. Pick a county we have not loaded and the tool says so and sends you to the IRS page, rather than quietly substituting a state average for a published county figure.