Lost a Letter From Irs Request to Have It Sent Again

Their checks to the U.S. Treasury were cashed nearly a year agone. But taxpayers say they're now receiving letters from the Internal Revenue Service asking them to immediately file their 2022 federal income taxation returns.

Yep, copies of their 2022 returns. Yep, the aforementioned paper returns they filed last leap.

"Please file today," the letter of the alphabet begins. "Send your signed return to the accost shown to a higher place. Nosotros'll assign the credit to the taxation you owe and refund whatsoever over payment if y'all owe no other taxes or obligations."

Is this some other scam?

Yes, some readers who contacted me wondered whether this could be some sort of scam.

"It wasn't a text message. It wasn't an electronic mail. It was a letter," said Anne Hovell, 72, who recently received the IRS letter of the alphabet dated Jan. 24.

According to the letter sent to the couple in Gibraltar, the credit on their business relationship is $1,056. The IRS letter warns that at that place can be more problems ahead "if we don't hear from you."

"If y'all don't file your render or contact us," the form letter says, "yous may lose this credit. The Internal Acquirement Code sets strict fourth dimension limits for refunding or transferring credits."

Hovell, who keeps rails of transactions in her checking account, knows the money cleared a twelvemonth ago and she recognized that the amount listed as a credit is what she paid in taxes.

"If a check doesn't clear, I follow upwards," she said. "It did clear."

Hovell, who retired as a consultant for a tech company, knows that scammers often utilize email or texts. But she wondered if somehow the scammers were getting even more than sophisticated and created actual letters to demand copies of tax returns.

The notion of a scam seemed to make even more sense than thinking that the IRS could be sending letters to people who already paid their taxes and filed their returns.

Why would the IRS need another return?

If the federal government cashed their checks, she and others wondered, doesn't that mean the IRS received their render in the mail service — since the render and cheque were mailed together? Why wouldn't the IRS already accept their tax returns?

It'southward a expert question — and frankly one that could leave you lot in daze when you lot're thinking nigh all the piece of work that goes into filing your tax return in the offset identify. Information technology's very unsettling to get an IRS observe when you think you lot did everything past the book. Filed the return on time. Sent the money that was due.

The less scary function hither, of class, is that the IRS wasn't trying to collect money from the couple.

The letters that readers sent to me are marked "Notice CP80." And the letters I saw were sent out of Kansas City, Missouri.

The letter goes on to say: "If you take already filed this return: Please send a newly-signed copy to the address shown above. Be sure to attach copies of all schedules and other documents y'all included with the original return."

More:IRS volition begin processing 2022 tax returns as soon every bit January. 24

More than:IRS: Mistakes with child tax credit, stimulus can trigger refund delays

A big backlog of headaches

The pandemic has flipped a lot of things in life upside down.

The tax system has undergone sizable challenges since the two-year-long pandemic began in early 2020.

As of Dec. 4, 2021, the IRS said it had a backlog of 6.7 million unprocessed individual returns and 2.6 million unprocessed amended individual returns.

Mark Luscombe, principal analyst for Wolters Kluwer Tax & Accounting, said the IRS is nonetheless processing millions of 2022 returns and these notices go out automatically when the IRS believes it has not received a render.

While information technology might seem on the surface that delays have gone on and so long that the IRS is unable to observe many of the paper returns, many experts say that'southward not probable to be the case at all. A glut of automated notices might have been sent to many people who probable should non have received them.

Edward Karl, vice president of tax policy and advocacy for the American Institute of CPAs, said the CP80 notice has an important place in the process. The detect would ordinarily be sent when a tax return for a given year wasn't received fifty-fifty though the filer might have paid a good bargain of money already into the organization, such as through estimated taxes.

Someone might have forgotten to file a render when they accept a credit to their account, coin that could exist owed to them in a refund, when there'due south been a troubling event, such as a trauma, a divorce, a death or natural disaster.

The CP80 observe lets the taxpayer know that when a return hasn't been filed, and they can file 1 in time to claim whatever refund coin owed.

In most cases, an original render claiming a refund must be filed within three years of its due date for the IRS to effect a refund.

"The simply issue is nosotros're not in normal times," Karl said.

The IRS, like the residual of the country, has faced more than than its fair share of challenges since the COVID-19 pandemic hit. To stem outbreaks of the virus, the IRS had to close down its centers earlier in the pandemic and IRS employees had to exist protected but piles of unprocessed returns congenital up.

"They have such a backlog of processing," Karl said. "The pandemic has put them in a deep hole."

The IRS backs off but not shortly enough for some

The notices sent out in January, though, seem to be adding to the paperwork.

On Th, the IRS announced that it would "suspend notices in situations where we have credited taxpayers for payments only have no record of the taxation return being filed."

The thought backside stopping the notices is to avoid fifty-fifty more confusion.

The IRS noted in its statement: "In many situations, the taxation return may be role of our electric current newspaper tax inventory and simply hasn't been processed. Stopping these letters which could take otherwise been sent to thousands of taxpayers — will help avoid confusion."

Unfortunately, many taxpayers opened their mail already and read the notices before the IRS appear that it was halting some of these mailings.

Diana Vollmayer, of Rochester Hills, said she and her husband already mailed the re-create of their 2022 return "certified/with return receipt."

"We are keeping records of all transactions," she said, noting that she, likewise, was told via her find of a credit to the couple's account. They made estimated tax payments just had filed their 2022 return by paper last spring and paid the rest of the money that they owed when they filed the render.

She said her friend received 1 of these letters, likewise, simply hired a CPA to review her 2022 taxes and handle the situation for her.

The IRS didn't offer a clear item of what notices it is suspending in its statement, as it doesn't even mention CP80 in its statement.

In an email response to the Free Printing, the IRS said it has suspended issuing the CP80 and CP080 (Unfiled Tax Return – Credit on Account) notices.

The IRS said the CP80 is a discover letter that informs a taxpayer that the bureau has credited payments and/or other credits to their tax account for a certain taxation period only the agency hasn't received their tax return.

The IRS has non disclosed how many of the notices went out this month. But confirmed that the messages aren't a scam.

"If a taxpayer has received a find for a 2022 return they should not refile," according to Luis Garcia, a spokesperson for the IRS in Detroit.

"For taxpayers who timely filed their 2022 taxation return, including extensions, and take received a notice they should refile their return," Garcia said.

Taxpayers also can establish and log into their revenue enhancement account online at IRS.gov to view their tax status and any correspondence the IRS has sent.

Karl maintains that taxpayers who received a notice now regarding a 2022 return would non have to send a copy of the return if they already filed a 2022 return and know that their payment went through.

If you lot didn't file a return, plainly, you could have money that y'all might be owed based on the find and would want to file to claim a refund.

If you received a observe regarding a 2022 render, Karl said, you would demand to ship in another signed re-create.

The AICPA is part of a group of stakeholders called the Tax Professionals United for Taxpayer Relief Coalition, which is seeking more than relief for taxpayers in light of the pandemic-related challenges.

The coalition'due south recommendations submitted to the IRS include "discontinuing automated compliance actions until the IRS is prepared to devote the necessary resources for a timely resolution — similar recommendation also included in the 2022 National Taxpayer Abet report."

The automated organisation makes more sense in more normal times when the backlog isn't so great. But bulk batches of notices now pose a slap-up risk of alerting many taxpayers to problems that aren't real on their end, according to professionals.

"They're going to be wrong in many instances because of the excess," Karl said. He said the news Thursday was welcome but more than needed to exist done.

The group also wants to see, among other changes, the IRS providing taxpayers with targeted relief from the underpayment and the late payment punishment for the 2022 and 2022 tax twelvemonth.

The IRS maintains that "making meaning operational changes to our systems, including stopping sure notices from being printed and mailed, may require programming and other operational changes. With an outdated technological ecosystem, these are changes that cannot be fabricated as efficiently equally they should be — and that is part of the reason why investing in IRS IT modernization is and then important."

Getting one of these letters, of grade, raises other questions, such as why would the IRS take cashed the check if the return that was filed wasn't processed?

Karl noted that cashing the check when it's received is part of the normal process. It'due south not a cause for alarm.

"It's prudent," Karl said. The U.S. Treasury uses this money to cover a wide range of regime expenditures.

You make your check payable to the United States Treasury and include a payment voucher called Form 1040-V that goes with the paper check. The IRS notes: "When we employ information from your check to make an electronic fund transfer, funds may exist withdrawn from your account every bit soon as the same day we receive your payment."

The returns are separated from the bank check and and then returns are processed further downwardly the line after the check has been cashed.

Normally, nosotros're non thinking about the ins-and-outs of how the IRS handles all that paperwork. But again, not much has been normal for the past two years.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this story referred to the wrong form number when describing the voucher to include with a paper cheque when sending payment to the IRS. That form number is 1040-5 and this version of the story is correct.

Contact Susan Tompor: stompor@freepress.com . Follow her on Twitter @ tompor . To subscribe, delight become to freep.com/specialoffer. Read more on business organisation and sign up for our concern newsletter.

funkcriongul.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.freep.com/story/money/personal-finance/susan-tompor/2022/01/28/irs-notice-why-resend-2020-returns-backlog/9252561002/

Share this post