Form 433-F (Rev. 7-2024), the Collection Information Statement, is the short financial statement the IRS uses in most Currently Not Collectible requests and in its campus and Automated Collection System cases. The form states its own purpose: it is “used to obtain current financial information necessary for determining how a wage earner or self-employed individual can satisfy an outstanding tax liability.” Every number the IRS uses to test your hardship claim comes off these two pages — so this walkthrough goes section by section: what each part is deciding, what to enter, and where people hurt themselves.
General information, not tax advice. Form 433-F is signed under penalties of perjury. Complete it from your records, not from memory, and never enter a figure you cannot document.
The document rule, resolved. Advice about this form contradicts itself online: some guides insist you attach three months of everything; others say to send no documents at all. Both are describing half of the process. The 433-F itself is submitted clean — you do not staple a document dump to the form. But every figure on it is subject to verification: the representative working your case may go through your bank statements, pay stubs, and bills with you on the phone, or direct you to send copies afterwards. File the form clean; keep the proof within arm’s reach. The norm for the file is three months of bank statements — six months if you run a business is a common request at the 433-A level.
Lists your bank accounts (checking, savings, money market) and lines of credit. The form’s instruction is explicit: “List all accounts, even if they currently have no balance.” That includes online and mobile payment accounts of the PayPal/Venmo type, which taxpayers routinely forget and the IRS routinely finds. Enter institution, account type, and current balance for each. Balances here feed the asset side of the hardship test.
Stocks, bonds, mutual funds, retirement accounts (401(k), IRA), and virtual currency — wallets and exchange accounts are an explicit item, not an afterthought. Report current values and any loans against retirement accounts. As with Section A, this section is asset disclosure: understating it is the fastest way to convert a routine hardship review into a credibility problem.
Every property you own: address, purchase date and price, current value, and loan balance. The difference between value and balance is equity, and equity is what Gate 3 of the hardship test examines. If you believe property equity cannot realistically be reached — a failed attempt to borrow against it is the classic evidence — that argument is built from documents, and it starts with honest numbers here.
Vehicles first: year, make, model, mileage, and loan balance for each — the IRS applies its own equity cushion to one vehicle, and additional or high-value vehicles get less shelter. Then any other assets of value: equipment, collections, additional property interests. Completeness matters more than the amounts; the representative’s working assumption is that what is missing was hidden.
For the self-employed and business owners. E1 covers accounts receivable — money owed to your business, which the IRS counts as an asset. E2 covers business bank and merchant/payment-processing accounts. If you are a wage earner with no business, this section is short; if you do run a business, expect it to be read together with Section G’s profit-and-loss figures, and expect the six-month bank-statement norm rather than three.
Your employer, occupation, how long you have worked there, pay frequency, and gross/net pay — plus the same for a spouse. One genuine time-saver is printed on the form: if a current pay stub is attached, the employment section need not be completed. Attach the stub.
Income that does not arrive as wages: a spouse’s non-wage income, rental income, benefits, and self-employment. The controlling rule is that self-employment and rental figures are entered net — income minus the ordinary and necessary expenses of producing it — and self-employment requires a current-year profit-and-loss statement attached. Entering gross business receipts here is the single most common self-inflicted error on the form: it inflates your apparent income and can sink a hardship claim that the true net figures would have passed.
This is where CNC is won or lost. Section H lists your monthly living expenses — housing, utilities, food and clothing, transportation, health care and health insurance, current taxes, court-ordered payments, child care, life insurance, and other necessary items. Two mechanics matter:
You sign the form under penalties of perjury — it is a sworn financial statement, and the figures become the baseline the IRS re-uses at every later review of your status (see how long CNC lasts). An error you catch later should be corrected affirmatively, not left for a reviewer to find. What happens after the form is complete — the phone call itself, the script, and how to confirm the status posted — is the request playbook. If working through Section H shows monthly income left over after allowable expenses, your numbers point away from CNC and toward an offer — estimate that side with the offer in compromise calculator before you call.
What is Form 433-F used for? It is the IRS’s short Collection Information Statement for individuals, used to obtain the financial information needed to determine how a wage earner or self-employed person can satisfy a tax liability — in practice, it is the form on which most Currently Not Collectible determinations and many payment decisions are based.
Do I have to list bank accounts with no balance? Yes. The form instructs you to list all accounts, even if they currently have no balance — and that includes online and mobile payment accounts. An omitted empty account discovered later damages your credibility on every other figure.
What is the difference between Form 433-F and Form 433-A? Length and setting. The 433-F is the two-page short statement used in ACS/campus cases and most CNC requests; the 433-A is the longer statement used in revenue-officer and field cases, with expanded sections and schedules. Businesses file the 433-B, and an offer in compromise uses its own 433-A (OIC) variant.
Do I send supporting documents with Form 433-F? Not attached to the form itself — the statement is submitted clean. But the figures are verified: keep three months of bank statements, current pay stubs, and your expense bills ready, because the representative may review them with you or ask you to send copies during the determination.
How many months of bank statements does the IRS want with the 433-F? Three months is the working norm for the CNC file (six months is commonly required where a business is involved, at the 433-A level). Have them gathered before you call, whether or not they are requested on the first contact.
General information, not tax advice. Sources: Form 433-F (Rev. 7-2024) and its printed instructions, irs.gov. Currency verified 2026-10-23.