Did You Receive IRS CP14 Notice by Mistake? Here's What to Do!

Hey, everyone. It's June 2024. I wanted to let you know about what's going on with the IRS as far as them sending out incorrect CP14 notices.

Now, if you don't know what that is, it's an IRS notice sent to taxpayers informing them that they owe money on unpaid taxes. It provides details about the money owed, including penalties and interest, and explains how to pay the balance.

Now, the thing is, the IRS is actually sending out incorrect CP14 notices. So if you received one and you paid the balance with the tax return when it was due, you might be surprised to receive one of these notices saying that you still owe the balance.

Keep reading, and I'll guide you exactly how to handle this and what to do if you receive an IRS CP14 Notice by mistake.

I'm Noel Lorenzana. I'm a registered CPA licensed in Illinois. Feel free to reach out to me for any any tax preparation, bookkeeping, and accounting needs.

Let's dive in!

IRS CP14 Notice Sent in Error!

Have you received a CP14 Balanced Due Notice from the IRS when you already paid the balance owed? Receiving an IRS CP14 notice can be a nerve-wracking experience. This notice indicates that the IRS believes you owe unpaid taxes. However, mistakes can happen, and as I said before, the IRS is sending out incorrect CP14 notices. 

What is an IRS CP14 Notice?

An IRS CP14 notice is a letter sent to taxpayers informing them that they owe money on unpaid taxes.

Naturally, if you received a CP14 notice and you already paid the amount due, you might be really surprised, and a lot of people are freaking out about this. Rightfully so. Nobody wants to receive an IRS notice, especially if they've already paid their taxes.

Just to give you some background information, every June, the IRS sends out millions of these letters. If you have an amount due on your prior year tax return, they're sent out automatically.

The IRS CP14 Notice Example

So let's take a look at a sample CP14 notice that you might have received. Okay, so here is a sample IRS CP14 notice that I found online.

Up here on the top right, You can see the notice name CP14, tax year, 2023. That's the return year that we just filed this year. And the notice date, June third, 2024.

So like I mentioned, these were sent out starting in June.

And looking down, you can see it says, Our records show you filed your 2023 Form 1040 with an amount owed. And the amount owed was approximately $7,817.03.

But in this case, the taxpayer paid the amount due in full. So they were really surprised to still receive this IRS notice.

At the bottom, they include a payment stub where you can send your presumed payment if you actually do owe the money.

So that's basically the IRS CP14 notice.

So this year, the IRS is actually delayed in processing payments for some reason, and this resulted in all these erroneous letters being sent out.

What to Do If You Get an IRS CP14 Notice?

So what are you supposed to do now if you received one? So according to Spidel, which is a tax and education website, I'll show their website later in the post, they issued this notice on June seventh.

"Erroneous IRS notices being sent due to processing delays.

We've received inquiries from numerous tax professionals asking why their clients are receiving CP14 notices indicating a balanced due. Even though the clients can substantiate, they timely paid all the tax due.

The IRS has confirmed that there is a nationwide delay in processing payments, resulting in erroneous balanced due notices being sent when there is, in fact, no tax due."

Aha, this is all very interesting.

So here's the actual website for Spadel Tax Analysis Education.

And interestingly enough, I haven't seen anything on the IRS website, so kudos to them for getting this information out there.

Continuing on, this is what the IRS advises.

"The IRS is advising tax professionals and their clients to wait 6-8 weeks to see if the payments are posted before contacting the IRS. If payments are not posted after the 6-8 week period, the tax professional or client will have to provide proof of payment to the IRS to ensure that no penalties are imposed."

So if this applies to you, you could disregard the letter for now.

Wait 6-8 weeks to see if payment has actually been posted to your account. If it has, then you don't have to worry about anything. If it hasn't, then you need to reach out to the IRS.

You might have to respond to the letter with your proof of payment. You can also call the IRS using the number on the notice, speak with an employee, and get it sorted out right then and there.

Conclusion

Receiving a CP14 notice can be unsettling, but it doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve done something wrong. Mistakes happen, and to recap, if you received a CP14 tax due letter from the IRS, review it carefully since it may not be correct, especially if you think you've already paid it. Remember, you’re not alone in this—professional help is available if you need it.

I hope you found the blog post helpful. Thanks for reading, and see you in the next blog post