How to Fill Out IRS Form 433-F: Assets, Expenses, and Signing

To fill out IRS Form 433-F, you work through a Collection Information Statement that lays out your income, bank accounts, assets, debts, and monthly expenses so the IRS can determine what you can realistically pay each month. Accuracy matters more than anything else. Every number should match a document you can produce, because the IRS will ask, and figures that do not line up with your statements will slow the case down or get your proposed arrangement rejected.

Gather Your Documents First

The single biggest mistake with Form 433-F is starting to write before you have the paperwork in front of you. Pull all of this together first:

Three to six months of statements for every checking, savings, money market, retirement, and brokerage account, including IRAs, 401(k) plans, Keogh plans, mutual funds, and certificates of deposit.¹
Recent pay stubs for you and your spouse, plus documentation of any Social Security benefits, pensions, unemployment, self-employment income, rental income, alimony, or child support.
Your most recent mortgage statement for each property, along with a reasonable estimate of current market value from a county tax assessment or comparable sales.
Loan statements and current values for vehicles and other significant assets, plus any whole life insurance policy with cash surrender value.¹
Current balances and minimum payments for credit cards, auto loans, student loans, and other debts.
Actual monthly figures for rent or mortgage, utilities, food, transportation, health insurance, and out-of-pocket medical costs. Real numbers, not estimates.

Once these are in front of you, the form itself becomes a matter of transcribing what your documents already say.

Personal Information and Employment

The top of the form asks for your name, address, Social Security number, and phone numbers for you and your spouse. Report the number of people in your household who can be claimed as dependents, split into two age brackets: under 65 and 65 and older. Household size and age drive your allowable living expenses later in the form, so get this right.

Section F covers employment. Enter your employer’s name and address, pay frequency, gross pay per period, and federal, state, and local taxes withheld per period. If your spouse works, their employer details go here too. Section G captures non-wage income for the whole household: Social Security, pensions, self-employment, rental income, unemployment, interest and dividends, alimony, and child support.¹

Bank Accounts and Investments (Section A)

List every personal bank account and investment account. For each, give the institution name, account number, account type, and current balance. Retirement accounts belong here too: IRAs, 401(k) plans, profit-sharing plans, and mutual funds. If an account also serves a business, check the box marking it.¹

Do not omit retirement accounts on the assumption the IRS will not touch them. The IRS treats retirement balances as assets and factors them into ability to pay, even when liquidation would trigger tax penalties.

Real Estate (Section B)

For each property, report the description and location, monthly payment, current market value, and the balance owed on any mortgage or lien. The form asks you to compute equity by subtracting the balance owed from the current value.¹ You also enter the year of purchase, original purchase price, and whether you have refinanced.

The math matters. A property worth $250,000 with a $180,000 mortgage has $70,000 in equity. Getting that arithmetic wrong changes the IRS’s entire calculation of what you can pay. If you have meaningful equity in property beyond your primary residence, expect the IRS to ask why you have not borrowed against it or sold it.

Other Assets and Digital Assets (Section C)

Section C covers everything that is not a bank account or real estate: vehicles, boats, whole life insurance policies, and any other property with meaningful value. For each, list the description, monthly payment, year purchased, current value, balance owed, and equity. Kelley Blue Book works for vehicle values.

Whole life insurance policies belong here because they accumulate cash surrender value, which the IRS counts as an available asset.¹ Term life policies have no cash value and do not need to be listed.

The form also has a dedicated area for digital assets. Report the type of cryptocurrency, the wallet or exchange name, and the current U.S. dollar value. This section is relatively new, and the IRS treats crypto the same as any other asset when weighing your finances.

Credit Cards (Section D)

For each credit card, list the type, credit limit, balance owed, and minimum monthly payment. The IRS is not particularly sympathetic to large credit card balances, but it does count minimum payments in your expense calculation.

Business Information (Section E)

If you are self-employed or own a business, Section E asks for accounts receivable (who owes you money and how much) and any business credit card or merchant accounts. Even filing as an individual, you need to disclose business income and assets that could contribute to paying the tax debt.

Monthly Expenses (Section H)

Section H is where most of the complexity lives. You report actual monthly expenses, but the IRS does not accept every figure at face value. It uses Collection Financial Standards to cap what counts as an “allowable” expense in each category. Your total allowable expenses subtracted from your total income becomes your monthly disposable income, and that number is what the IRS expects you to pay each month.

National Standards

The IRS sets flat monthly allowances for food, housekeeping supplies, clothing, personal care, and miscellaneous expenses based on household size alone. You get the full standard without documenting individual costs.² The current monthly totals, effective through June 2026:

One person: $839
Two persons: $1,481
Three persons: $1,753
Four persons: $2,129
Each additional person: add $394 to the four-person amount

If you claim more than the national standard in any single subcategory, the IRS will ask you to document why.

Out-of-Pocket Health Care

Separate from health insurance premiums, the IRS allows $84 per month for each household member under 65 and $149 per month for each member 65 and older.³ You get these amounts automatically without proving what you spend. Health insurance premiums are reported separately at the actual amount you pay.

Local Standards

Housing, utilities, and transportation costs vary by location, so the IRS uses Local Standards that differ by county and metropolitan area. The IRS generally allows the lesser of your actual expense or the local standard.⁴ You can look up your specific allowances on the IRS website by selecting your state and county.⁵

This is where the form’s outcome is often decided. Someone paying $2,800 in rent in an expensive market, where the local standard caps housing and utilities at $2,200, will have their allowance calculated at $2,200. The extra $600 becomes disposable income in the IRS’s eyes even though it goes to the landlord in real life.

Do not lowball your expenses hoping to look cooperative. The IRS applies its standards regardless. Reporting your actual costs, even when they exceed the standard, at least gives you the chance to argue those costs are necessary. Reporting artificially low expenses locks you into a payment you cannot afford, and defaulting later puts you in a worse spot than you started.

How the IRS Turns Your Numbers Into a Payment

Once the form is complete, the calculation is straightforward: total monthly income minus total allowable monthly expenses equals disposable income, and disposable income becomes your required monthly installment. If that number is zero or negative, you may qualify for Currently Not Collectible status, which pauses collection activity because you genuinely cannot afford anything.⁶

The IRS also examines asset equity. Significant equity in a second property, valuable vehicles, or large retirement balances can prompt questions about why those assets are not being tapped before a payment plan is set. That does not mean seizure is imminent, but you should be prepared to explain why selling or borrowing against those assets is not feasible.

Signing and Submitting

Sign the form and attach copies of your supporting documentation. Where to send it depends on how the request reached you:

Responding to an IRS notice: use the specific mailing address or fax number printed on the notice.
Working with the Automated Collection System by phone: the ACS representative may take the information verbally and ask you to fax or mail documents afterward.
Attaching to Form 9465: when Form 9465 instructions require a financial statement, attach the completed 433-F to the installment agreement request.⁷

Keep a full copy of everything you send, including every page of documentation. Mail with certified return receipt. If you fax, use a cover sheet and save the transmission confirmation. Paperwork does get lost, and being able to prove what you sent and when is what keeps you from starting over.

Mistakes That Slow Things Down

Misreporting asset values is the most frequent error. Overstate what your property or accounts are worth and you look like you can pay more than you actually can. Understate them and the IRS spots the mismatch against your bank statements and loan documents. Either way, you end up in a follow-up loop that adds weeks or months.

Other common problems: leaving fields blank instead of writing zero, omitting a small bank account or retirement plan because you assumed it did not matter, and rounding to estimates instead of pulling the exact figure from a statement. Math errors on equity calculations show up constantly. Every number on the form should be defensible against a document behind it.

When Form 433-F Is Not the Right Form

If you are pursuing an Offer in Compromise to settle your tax debt for less than the full amount, Form 433-F will not work. An OIC requires Form 433-A (OIC) for individuals or Form 433-B (OIC) for businesses, submitted with Form 656 and a $205 application fee.⁸ Those are separate forms with their own instructions. Separately, taxpayers assigned to a Revenue Officer will usually be asked for the longer Form 433-A instead of 433-F, which asks for substantially more detail.

1
Internal Revenue Service. IRS Form 433-F – Collection Information Statement
2
Internal Revenue Service. National Standards – Food, Clothing and Other Items
3
Internal Revenue Service. National Standards – Out-of-Pocket Health Care
4
Internal Revenue Service. Collection Financial Standards
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Internal Revenue Service. Local Standards – Housing and Utilities
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Internal Revenue Service. Temporarily Delay the Collection Process
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Internal Revenue Service. Payment Plans – Installment Agreements
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Internal Revenue Service. Offer in Compromise