<prompt> Human: My wife and I are looking to buy a drive through coffee shop, however the business has a 16,000 lien against it for federal taxes owed. We have yet to look at the books with the current owner and go over price and payment options and the like. However, I want to know if we should even go look at the books and entertain the idea of purchasing it. I know that the current owner has been showing a loss on the books for a few years now, but that the company is definitely pulling a healthy profit. Like I said before we have yet to look at the books, and do not know the exact price. EDIT: They have two sets of books, one shows a loss for the business so that they pay less in taxes. And another to show how much they are actually making to really keep track of all expenses. Yes i know that this is illegal. My wife is currently a employee. She knows how much all supplies cost and how often they are ordered. Knows how much goes to employees each month and to the current manager. Also a rough amount of how much the stand makes on an average day. EDIT 2: People seem to think that it is uncommon to have two sets of books. Its not. I would never do it personally, but that doesnt mean people dont.  <response>: You are going about this completely wrong. 1 You want to see audited financial statements for the business. The audit should be performed by a completely independent accountant. If they dont have audited financial statements dont buy the business. No exceptions to this rule. These people are lying to the government and you have no real assurance they are not lying to you. 2 You want to consult with a competent accountant and a competent lawyer who have experience in sales of businesses before you go through with the sale. You may find that the tax lien is actually on the owners, not the business. You should probably also structure the sale as a sale of assets, NOT a sale of the business. This means you start your own completely new and completely separate business and buy all the assets of the coffee shop in your businesss name. The current owners business gets shut down after all the assets are sold. This should prevent the tax lien from being passed to you. It will also allow you to start depreciating the assets as if they were acquired now instead of continuing the original owners depreciation schedule. This will likely reduce your taxable income once you have the business up and running. 3 You will also want to consult with an accountant and a lawyer about how you will structure the business once you own it. Youll probably want something with limited liability - an LLC or S-Corp, for example. Your lawyer and accountant should get together and decide which is best for you. 4 Just hire an accountant and a lawyer in general here. You need professional advice and you dont know what kind of things they might see that you dont. Its important enough to get this right that its worthwhile to pay a bit to make it happen. 