Short video (Donna Bordeaux) advising taxpayers about common IRS/state tax notices ("love letters"), explaining they often result from third-party data matches (interest, stock sales, retirement distributions) and recommending prompt, professional response (CPA or advisor) rather than ignoring the notices. She mentions CP 2000 notices as common and that many issues can be resolved by letter or phone call.
Foreign love letters used to be a thing of the past, but they're making a comeback. Hi, I'm Donna Bordeaux with calculatedmoves.com Love Letters from the IRS and state agencies are making a giant comeback. It's very rare that you will not receive a letter from the IRS or your state taxing agency within a few years. It's become a fact of life. And I know people dread opening that mailbox and seeing that letter from the irs, the mysterious Greek written letter where you can't even quite understand what they're saying. All right, I want to calm you and tell you you will be receiving one of these letters, your mailbox, within the next couple of years, if you haven't already. It's not something you have to be all that afraid of sometimes. You may have forgotten something. Many notices are based on matching, and that is that some outside financial authority has Fed information to the irs. Like your interest income, selling of stocks, retirement funds. All of that information is fed into the irs. And the big bad computer in the sky matches that information to your personal tax return that was filed. If it finds any discrepancies or if it just can't quite understand what happened, you may get what's called a CP 2000 notice. These are very common. They're very scary because in a lot of cases they will calculate tremendous dollar amounts due and you'll open it and get that gut safe feeling in your stomach. I want to tell you, you have to take a deep breath. If you're working with us, go ahead and send that notice over to us. Or if we have power of attorney, we may have already received it on your behalf. We will take a look and advise you what needs to happen. In many cases, these notices can be resolved with a simple letter or phone call to the irs. Or we may indeed find that the IRS system was right. Maybe a piece of mail didn't arrive to you, or you lost a piece along the way or forgot something. So the moral to this is, don't freak out. If you get those letters from the irs, I will tell you the worst thing you can do is stuff them in a drawer and hope they go away. They won't. So please work with your advisor, with a competent CPA who can help you resolve those notices in a timely manner. The worst case is to be waiting around and hoping they go away. They won't. They'll just continue to accrue. Interesting. The notices will get meaner and meaner by the day. So I'm here to help if you have any notices or love letters that you've received and you're not quite sure how to proceed, we can help you come on board with us so that we will take care of all those for you in the course of normal business. Hope you have a great day. Thank you.
