Receiving an IRS notice in the mail can be stressful. But now imagine opening a letter from the Internal Revenue Service earlier this month stating that you owe thousands of dollars in federal income taxes for your 2023 return; the problem is that you did pay your bill, on time and in full. And now the IRS sends you a notice demanding payment? That is exactly what is happening, and it isn’t a scam, it’s an IRS error.
Typically the notices the IRS sends are harmless and often inform taxpayers about a change, delay or correction to their tax return or that their refund has been updated. But also the IRS could issue a notice to alert you of an outstanding balance; these are known as CP14 notices, which indicate you owe money for unpaid taxes, usually due to a missing payment or an incomplete payment.
Currently these CP14 notices from the IRS, indicating an amount due for tax payments, are arriving in error to taxpayers in different parts of the country. Read on to learn what the IRS says and what to do if you receive one of these notices.
The IRS Is Issuing Tax Debt Notices by Mistake: What Is Known
The sharp NBC affiliate 8WGAL reported that Pennsylvania taxpayers have been hit by a flood of CP14 notices related to unpaid 2023 taxes. The issue is that these individuals did pay on time. Similar cases have appeared in Michigan, where recipients have received these notices claiming the IRS says they owe money, sometimes thousands of dollars, in unpaid income tax; but just like the Pennsylvania taxpayers, they paid their full amounts on time.
The CP14 notice that many Americans are receiving states that people owe thousands of dollars to the agency and that payment must be made by June 24, in addition to penalties and interest for not meeting the April 19 deadline. And the IRS is aware of this error, as through a statement on its website they apologized to taxpayers for the inconvenience caused by the delay in processing their payment.
Why is the IRS Sending Erroneous Tax Debt Notices?
The IRS has acknowledged that these tax debt notices, or CP14s, are legitimate and not a phishing scam. “The IRS is aware that some taxpayers are receiving CP14 notices (Balance due, no arithmetic error) that indicate a balance due despite payments having been made with their 2023 tax return,” the agency acknowledged.
According to information shared by the Internal Revenue Service, “it is possible that the notice was initiated before the payment was processed in the account, or that the payment was processed but contained errors and requires further handling to fix the error before updating the tax account.”
How to Verify If My CP14 Notice Is an IRS Error?
If you have received a CP14 notice, but you paid your taxes in full and on time, the IRS says you can ignore the notice; however, if you paid only part of your 2023 taxes, the IRS recommends following the instructions on the notice to ensure your account is up to date.
“Taxpayers can make sure their payment is reflected in their account by checking the Online Account with the SSN used to make the payment. Note that any penalties and interest assessed will be automatically adjusted when the IRS properly applies the payments,” the IRS told 8 WGAL.
