Notice Received

For all our talk of tax season (and especially our excitement and subsequent hibernation when it ends), it’s not as if it is something that ever fully goes away. The IRS may do the bulk of its work early in the year during tax season, but it never fully rests. This is something that uglily rears its head when you open your mailbox and find a piece of mail from the agency.

Now I know I can’t sit on too high of a horse and tell you that you shouldn’t worry in this situation. First, it’s impossible to not get a little jolt when it happens. After all, there’s no way that good news is inside that envelope, right? Well, it could be. The agency will definitely tell you if they think you did something incorrectly on your tax return, but it occasionally does tell of one that occurs in their favor.

But yes, chances are still that any news from the IRS is not going to be grand. You still must open that envelope, though, because no matter how bad the news is, there is no way that it’s going to get better by procrastinating finding out what it says (or ignoring it completely).  After, all, there’s a good chance that it’s speaking to a debt with interest involved, so the longer it goes on, the more that interest mounts.

So, especially if you work with us concerning tax matters, open it, read the news, and send a copy of the notice to us. We can then help you understand what it says and if there is anything that can be done to combat it.

In addition, all correspondence from the IRS is part of its Taxpayer Bill of Rights that includes a taxpayer’s right to be informed. So these notices aren’t always giant pieces of bad news of which you were completely unaware. They feel that way when you first see the envelope, but it could also be an update on an issue you are already dealing with.
On the whole, we find that anyone receiving THAT bad news out of nowhere is very rare. Even if someone doesn’t file taxes, they know somewhere in their head that they should and their bill is growing. So, if the IRS is trying to tell you something, being informed of that can then become a strength for you. When you know what’s going on, you can fight against it or at least plan to handle it.

​So don’t hide and know that we are, as always, on your side if you need help traveling the path that any envelope opens.

Warmly,

Josh Bousquet
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