As a direct funder, I will volunteer that I would have the same issue as the other lenders you are talking with. The only possible way out is to pay off the IRS as part of the funding which may kill the deal, depending upon total amount of funding and the profitability of the current company. Doesn't matter if the lien was on a prior company. Your client still owes it and the IRS will eventually find his current company and put a lien on them (at least that is the way we would look at it). In either case, the individual is personally liable so his PFS will be shot to hell.

Case in point, we had to kill a deal at the 11th hour a few weeks ago because of this exact situation...we found a $1MM tax lien from a prior company that the owner "forgot" to tell us about.

Not sure if this helps but wanted to offer a third party opinion.

Dan Page