As a tax professional with quite a few clients, our clients receive IRS notices. Much of this correspondence (not all, but a large portion) has to be responded to. My three most recent cases are making me think there are major issues with the IRS handling mail.
Client #1 received an Automated Underreporting Unit (AUR) notice alleging four items: two 1099-NECs not reported, one 1099-MISC, and some capital gains. We timely responded in December pointing out with backup documentation where all the alleged unreported income was on the tax return (it was all there). Earlier this month we received a notice reducing the alleged unreported items to three (one of the 1099-NECs was removed from the list). We just sent basically the same response with the same documentation to the AUR group (and hope it won’t take four back-and-forths to go through a four-item list).
Client #2 received a notice alleging a “Math Error” on his return. You have exactly 60 days to respond. We did so–and this is required to be mailed using certified mail, return receipt requested (which we did). The IRS alleged we didn’t timely respond. I sent back documentation proving we timely responded. It’s been several months, and we’re still waiting on a response.
Client #3 received a notice alleging his return was untimely filed. His return was required to be mailed; he was outside the United States and sent it with tracking from New Zealand (timely). It wasn’t received timely (but that’s the fault of the Postal Service, not my client) and doesn’t impact him; there’s a rule in tax called the Postmark Rule which governs this situation. My client has now received a letter from IRS Collections even though we disputed the entire issue months ago.
It’s not just me. If you’re a tax professional, prepare to be very depressed when you read this Twitter/X thread from a CPA in Indiana named Mike Sylvester. An excerpt:
…[The Taxpayer Advocate agent’s] case load has tripled since 2019.
She said the cases she sees now the IRS is wrong almost every time. She said The IRS correspondence system is beyond broken. Her words, not mine.
She said the IRS broke during Covid and still has not recovered.
Then the part that just floored me. Understand the long time policy of The Taxpayer Advocate is only contact them as a last resort. Try to work the problem with the IRS hard yourself first.
I told her another problem I am having and how many times the IRS and I have gone back and forth. She told me I was wasting my time and I should have opened a Taxpayer Advocate case several months ago.
She said I need to open cases faster…
I am still shocked by this.…[emphasis in original]
There is plenty more, and reading through the comments made me depressed. One comment is that there are fewer than 12 individuals working at the IRS Philadelphia Service Center to handle correspondence! My experience with the Taxpayer Advocate Service (TAS)–when they get to your case–has been excellent. However, it’s clear they are buried.
Major work is needed with correspondence, and tax professionals and taxpayers are suffering. TAS is supposed to be a last resort; it should not be a necessity most of the time. Yet it may become so (if that has not already occurred).