Here in San Diego, our 2023 1040 and 2024 1040-ES P1 payments didn’t have to be paid until June 17, 2024 because of “flood damage”, courtesy of powerful CA politicians. Same with CA income tax payments. I didn’t have any flood damage, but I took advantage of the break.

But I got a letter from the IRS a few days ago stating that I owed them $16K+, including interest and penalties. Fear and loathing came upon me.

None of the values agreed with any of my recent payments, so I sent the info to my tax guy. He quickly determined that the IRS thought I hadn’t made my 2023 1040 payment. Despite the fact that my bank showed that the payment cleared on June 14.

My tax guy said that he could deal with the IRS for me, or I could call them myself to avoid an additional account charge. I quickly chose his first option. The thought of a LONG hold to reach a diversity hire had no appeal.

A good tax guy is a jewel!

Let your tax guy do it. If he was your preparer he is better equipped than you to deal with their nonsense

I think the IRS does this on purpose.

During Covid I got a similar letter regarding a different type of payment, but it demanded the payment and penalties.

I called. I was on hold for a long time. I finally got somebody on the other end who told me that they had a warehouse full of mail that had not been processed yet, and that my return was probably there. She offered me an extension, and told me if it hadn't been processed in 90 days to call them back. Several weeks later it was.

I wonder how many people just paid the fine/penalty without knowing that the IRS was the one responsible for that delay.

That's the one of the reasons I have a "tax guy" instead of doing it myself.
Having someone between you and them to act as a buffer can be very important. They also should know the subtle and practical aspects of the laws and how they are interpreted.
I also suspect they have some contact methods so they don't have to put up with the same wait times and other BS we mere peons are required to go through.

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I wonder how many people just paid the fine/penalty without knowing that the IRS was the one responsible for that delay.

Many do accept & sign the letter. Never sign the letter even if you owe the amount. About 75% of the letters my tax clients receive are incorrect. Also IRS may forgive the penalties if you ask.

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Originally posted by 220-9er:
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I also suspect they have some contact methods so they don't have to put up with the same wait times and other BS we mere peons are required to go through.

My thought too.

I had a somewhat similar experience a couple of years ago on an estate account. Tax return and payment actually made before the due date. A couple of months later I received a similar notice. It was fruitless trying to reach the IRS by phone. After some thought, I called on a Friday evening and much my surprise, an IRS employee in West Virginia answered. Her initial response was that I owed money. When I told her I was looking at my financial account online and the IRS had in fact withdrawn the funds on a specific date months before. She then checked in two more IRS computer systems and found that I had indeed paid my taxes on time. No apology was forthcoming, nor did I really expect one. I have since learned of another person who had a similar problem and outcome. Should this happen again, I will let the CPA firm I use handle the problem. FYI. Local CPA and estate law firms have hired people whose sole responsibility is to call the IRS, remain on hold for however long it takes until the call goes through, and then summon either a CPA or attorney to speak to the IRS.

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and then summon either a CPA or attorney to speak to the IRS.

Only CPA's, enrolled agents & attorneys can get a POA (IRS form 2848) accepted by IRS. It normally takes about two weeks. We can then access most client IRS records and talk with someone. We do have a IRS practitioners priority telephone number but the wait is as long & the people answering are usually no help.

All of this speaks volumes about how inefficient and unstable our current government and this system of sustaining it really are.

It will all collapse, because it has to. They have become gangsters.

In cases like Pipe Smoker's and uvahawk's, where the taxpayer has documented evidence that payment was made in full and on time, wouldn't a letter sent by certified mail be sufficient, instead of calling and waiting forever on hold?

We had to do battle with them over the tax credit we got when we installed our solar array several years ago. It was something like 3 years later that they sent a us a letter saying we needed to provide proof, which we had already done when we did the taxes for the year. They not only wanted proof of payment for the array, they wanted the original estimate, original design for the array and a certified letter from.the company saying they had installed it and that we paid for it.

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Originally posted by V-Tail:
In cases like Pipe Smoker's and uvahawk's, where the taxpayer has documented evidence that payment was made in full and on time, wouldn't a letter sent by certified mail be sufficient, instead of calling and waiting forever on hold?

I don’t know. But the IRS said that I had to pay by July 15 to avoid additional penalties and interest (and their interest rate is usurous).

I suspect that it would be a long time before the IRS responded to your certified letter, and the answer might be negative. You’d still be in the soup. Letting my tax guy deal with this issue was the best course for me.

Incompetence is rampant in our government and the IRS is the flag ship of incompetence.

Their 80K new agents will simply make them even more inept.

RMD

Years back the IRS gave us additional time to pay taxes. Of course this was forgotten and the IRS stated we owed 24 thousand in penalties. We corrected the matter,but it took one year.{BTW this was the IRS giving us an extra year to pay because we were the victims of a disaster.}