If a tax lien is showing on your credit report in 2026, there's a strong chance it shouldn't be there. In April 2018, the three major credit bureaus — Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion — completed a rollback that removed all tax liens from consumer credit reports, following the same public-records standards that cleared most civil judgments in 2017. We're Damon Boswell and Ashley Boswell, the co-founders of PayAfterPerformance, and we help clients clear tax liens that are appearing in violation of those updated standards every single week. In this guide, Damon Boswell and Ashley Boswell walk you through exactly why tax liens disappeared from credit reports, when one can still legally affect your financial life, and the step-by-step FCRA process Damon Boswell and Ashley Boswell use to dispute and remove a tax lien that's being reported in error.
Before Damon Boswell gets into the dispute process, Ashley Boswell wants to set one honest expectation: if a tax lien is genuinely valid and unpaid, it can still affect your financial life even though it no longer appears on your credit report. The IRS can still file a federal tax lien, pursue collection, and attach the debt to real property. What Damon Boswell and Ashley Boswell specialize in is removing tax liens that are inaccurate, outdated, misdated, the result of identity theft, or — most commonly — reported in violation of the 2018 public records standards. That distinction is the difference between ethical credit restoration and a scam, and it's the standard Ashley Boswell holds every single file to.
Why Tax Liens Disappeared From Credit Reports
This is the foundation of everything Damon Boswell and Ashley Boswell do with tax lien removal, and it surprises most clients. In 2017, the bureaus began tightening the standards for including public records on credit reports, and in April 2018 they completed the rollback by removing all tax liens. As Experian confirms plainly, tax liens no longer appear on credit reports and do not affect credit scores — the bureaus stopped including tax liens because the public records data was too often incomplete, outdated, or mismatched to the wrong consumer.
Damon Boswell explains that the change required public records to include a consumer's name, address, and either a Social Security number or date of birth, and to be checked for updates at least every 90 days. Because most court and county records didn't meet those strict matching and verification requirements, the bureaus simply stopped reporting tax liens entirely. Ashley Boswell tells clients to remember this: if a tax lien is showing on your 2026 credit report, there is a strong chance it's there in error and can be challenged under the FCRA.
When a Tax Lien Can Still Affect Your Financial Life
Ashley Boswell is careful to explain the exceptions, because honesty matters. A tax lien can still affect your financial life even though it no longer appears on your credit report. The IRS can still file a federal tax lien, which is a legal claim against your property, and pursue collection through levies on bank accounts or wages. Damon Boswell reminds clients that the absence of a tax lien from your credit report does not erase the underlying tax debt; it simply means the bureaus chose not to report it. The IRS Fresh Start program and an Offer in Compromise remain the real paths to resolving the underlying debt, and Ashley Boswell coordinates with clients' tax professionals on that side.
Damon Boswell also notes that some specialty or smaller consumer reporting agencies may still reference tax-related public records under separate rules, and that a lender doing a public-records search can still find a recorded lien at the county level. The key point Ashley Boswell drives home: if any tax lien is appearing on your mainstream credit report today, it must meet the strict verification requirements the bureaus adopted in 2017-2018, and if it doesn't, the FCRA gives you the right to dispute it.
Step 1: Pull All Three Credit Reports
You can't challenge what you can't see. Ashley Boswell starts every tax lien file by pulling a tri-merge credit report — reports from Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion. As Damon Boswell reminds clients, the bureaus don't share information, so a lien might appear on one report and not the others, or appear with different details on each. The FTC recommends starting at AnnualCreditReport.com to get your free reports, and Ashley Boswell audits the public records section of all three for any tax lien entry.
Step 2: Confirm Whether the Lien Meets Reporting Standards
Damon Boswell examines every tax lien entry against the 2017-2018 standards. Does the entry include your full name, address, and either a Social Security number or date of birth? Is the court record being updated at least every 90 days? If the lien is missing required identifying information, is mismatched to you, or is a tax lien that the bureaus stopped reporting entirely, Ashley Boswell flags it for immediate dispute. Damon Boswell has seen tax liens attached to the wrong consumer because of a common name — a classic FCRA inaccuracy that the dispute process is built to fix.
Step 3: Dispute the Lien With the Bureau
Damon Boswell files a formal FCRA dispute with each bureau reporting the lien. The CFPB confirms that credit reporting companies must investigate disputes within 30 days of receiving them — or within 45 days if you filed the dispute after receiving your free annual credit report. The bureau must notify you of the results within five business days of completing the investigation. If the lien can't be verified under the tightened public records standards, the FCRA requires the bureau to remove it.
Ashley Boswell submits disputes in writing with certified mail so there's a paper trail, though the bureaus also accept online and phone disputes. Damon Boswell always prefers written disputes because they create a clear record and start the statutory clock cleanly. If the bureau comes back with a vague 'verified' notice, Ashley Boswell requests the method of verification — what exactly did the bureau do to confirm the lien? Shallow or automated investigations are challengable, and Damon Boswell has seen many tax lien entries deleted simply because the furnisher or court source failed to respond to the bureau's verification request.
“A tax lien on a 2026 credit report is a red flag, not a life sentence. When Damon Boswell and I challenge it under the 2018 standards, the ones that don't belong there come off — and the score recovers.”
— Ashley Boswell, Co-Founder, PayAfterPerformance
Step 4: Resolve the Underlying Lien With the IRS or State
Sometimes the problem isn't just the credit report — it's the lien itself. Damon Boswell explains that if a federal tax lien has been paid or released, the IRS issues a Certificate of Release of Federal Tax Lien, and once that release is recorded you can use it as the basis for an FCRA dispute to remove or update any lingering entry. For liens that are still outstanding, Ashley Boswell coordinates with the client's tax professional on the IRS Fresh Start program, installment agreements, and Offers in Compromise — the real paths to resolving the underlying debt so the lien can be released.
Ashley Boswell is clear that resolving the underlying tax debt is a tax matter handled with the IRS or state revenue agency, not a credit-repair trick. Damon Boswell helps clients gather the documentation — the Certificate of Release, proof of payment, or a withdrawal notice — that supports the credit-report dispute, and coordinates with the client's tax professional when one is involved. Once the lien is released or withdrawn, Ashley Boswell uses that official document as the basis for an FCRA dispute to remove the entry from the credit report.
Step 5: Handle Identity-Theft Tax Liens
Damon Boswell sees a surprising number of tax liens that exist because someone used a consumer's identity to incur tax obligations that resulted in a lien. These require an FTC identity-theft report and an FCRA block request, which Ashley Boswell files aggressively. The FTC provides a dedicated identity-theft recovery process, and once the identity-theft report is filed, the FCRA gives you the right to block the fraudulent lien from your credit report. Damon Boswell walks clients through filing the report at IdentityTheft.gov and submitting the block request to each bureau.
How Long a Tax Lien Can Stay If It's Properly Reported
For the rare tax lien that does meet the tightened reporting standards, the FCRA limits how long it can remain. Ashley Boswell explains that an unpaid tax lien could historically be reported indefinitely under older rules, but the 2018 rollback effectively ended that practice. Damon Boswell always locates the lien date first, because it controls the reporting clock. If a tax lien is older than the allowed window or was reported after the bureaus stopped including tax liens, the FCRA requires the bureaus to remove it — and if they don't, Ashley Boswell disputes it as outdated or improperly reported.
- Inaccurate tax liens — misdated, mismatched to the wrong consumer, or missing the required identifying information the bureaus adopted in 2017-2018.
- Unverifiable tax liens — the court or furnisher can't (or won't) verify the entry under the tightened public records standards, so the FCRA requires removal.
- Identity-theft tax liens — someone used your identity to incur a tax obligation that resulted in a lien. These require an FTC identity-theft report and an FCRA block request.
- Released or withdrawn tax liens — the IRS has issued a Certificate of Release or a withdrawal, and the credit report should reflect that.
- Outdated tax liens — the lien is older than the allowed reporting window or was reported after the bureaus stopped including tax liens, and must be removed under the FCRA.
“We don't get paid until we perform. So when Ashley Boswell and I tell you a tax lien shouldn't be on your report, it's because the 2018 standards say so — and our success is tied directly to getting it off.”
— Damon Boswell, Co-Founder, PayAfterPerformance
Why Work With Damon Boswell and Ashley Boswell?
You can file an FCRA dispute yourself — the CFPB even provides sample dispute letters — and for a single, clearly erroneous tax lien, that may be enough. The advantage of working with PayAfterPerformance is that Damon Boswell and Ashley Boswell manage the full tax-lien-removal process: pulling all three reports, auditing the public records section against the 2018 standards, filing the certified-mail disputes that start the 30-day clock cleanly, requesting method of verification on shallow investigations, coordinating release and withdrawal documentation, and handling identity-theft block requests. Together, Damon Boswell and Ashley Boswell handle the paperwork, the deadlines, and the persistence so the tax lien actually comes off.
And because we only get paid after we perform, Damon Boswell and Ashley Boswell are motivated to actually remove the tax lien — not just file a dispute and bill you regardless. If you see a tax lien on your credit report in 2026, connect with Damon Boswell and Ashley Boswell today. We'll pull your reports, audit the public records section, and start the dispute work that clears what shouldn't be there — and you only pay after we perform. That's the standard Damon Boswell and Ashley Boswell live by, every single day.
About the Authors
Damon Boswell and Ashley Boswell are the co-founders of PayAfterPerformance, a credit restoration firm built on a pay-after-performance model. Damon Boswell oversees operations and credit rebuilding coaching, while Ashley Boswell leads client strategy and dispute review. Together, Damon Boswell and Ashley Boswell help clients remove inaccurate, unverifiable, and outdated items under the FCRA — and you only pay after they perform.
Topics: remove tax lien from credit report 2026, tax lien no longer reported 2018, IRS tax lien credit report error, FCRA dispute tax lien, PayAfterPerformance
