Your IRS notice, decoded — and your response, ready to sign.
That envelope has a code on it — CP2000, CP14, CP504. Start with the free decoder for your code: what the notice means, what the printed deadline governs, and what the IRS says happens if you ignore it — verified against the IRS’s own pages. Then, if you want your response handled, a guided set of typed questions becomes a complete $149 response pack: your situation in plain English, a print-and-sign letter, an evidence checklist, the correct penalty-relief request where the rules allow one, and deadline reminders until you’ve mailed it.
Decode your notice — free →See a real sample pack →Read the FAQ →
Find your notice code — the decoder is free
The code is printed at the top of your letter. Each page explains the notice in plain English and gives you a live deadline countdown from the dates printed on it — no email, no SSN, nothing stored.
Proposed changes from third-party income matching
Your return doesn't match third-party records
Balance due — the first bill
Reminder — you still owe a balance
Second reminder — balance still due
Notice of Intent to Levy
A different code? See what we cover today — we only publish pages for notices we’ve verified against the IRS’s own documentation.
How it works
1. Decode it — free
Open your code’s page, enter the two dates printed on your notice, and see your real deadline, what it governs, and your branch: agree, partly agree, or disagree.
2. Answer typed questions
The numbers printed on your notice, what actually happened in your words, and a safety screen. Never your SSN, never an upload. Some situations are refused before payment — with honest guidance on the professional to hire instead.
3. Print, sign, mail
Your pack arrives as a private page + PDF, usually within about ten minutes. You review it, sign it, and send it through a channel printed on page 1 of your own notice. We remind you at 14 and 5 days before your deadline until you tell us it’s mailed.
What’s in the $149 pack
A ready-to-sign response letter
Built for your exact notice type’s response process, from your own answers — your payers, your numbers, your explanation told properly. Placeholders only where the IRS needs your hand: signature, date, and an SSN blank you fill in yourself.
An evidence checklist for your discrepancy
Which documents support your case — bank records, both copies of a duplicated 1099, payout statements — and how to present copies, never originals.
The correct penalty-relief request
A rules engine — not guesswork — decides which relief lever actually applies to your notice type and history: first-time abatement where it exists, a reasonable-cause request where it doesn’t, and an honest “nothing applies” when that’s the truth.
Send instructions, next steps, reminders
How to send it (always via the address or fax printed on page 1 of your notice), a what-happens-next branch map, when to stop and hire a professional — and reminder emails at 14 and 5 days before your deadline, silenced by one click.
A real CP2000 pack, exactly as a buyer receives it
Generated for a freelance designer whose CP2000 proposes $4,812 in additional tax because one client's corrected 1099-NEC got counted twice. This is the actual output of the same pipeline that builds every paid pack — the first two of its eight sections are below.
1. What your notice says, in plain English
The IRS received income and payment information from third parties and compared it to your 2024 tax return. It found what it believes are two discrepancies and is **proposing** changes to your return. This is not a bill and it is not an audit — it is a proposal, and nothing is final until you respond or the response date passes. **What the IRS is proposing:** | Item | Amount | |---|---| | Additional tax proposed | $4,812 | | Accuracy-related penalty proposed | $962 | | Interest proposed | $214 | | **Total proposed balance** | **$5,988** | **Why the IRS is proposing this — two separate issues:** 1. **Brightline Media LLC — $18,500 (you dispute this).** The IRS received two 1099-NEC forms from Brightline Media LLC, each showing $18,500, and counted both. Your records show Brightline issued an original 1099-NEC and then a second, corrected 1099-NEC for the same work after changing payroll providers. You reported the income once — $18,500 on Schedule C — which is correct. The IRS appears to have counted the same income twice. 2. **Fifth Third Bank — $112 interest income (you agree with this).** The IRS received a 1099-INT from Fifth Third Bank showing $112 in interest income that was not reported on your return. You acknowledge this was omitted in error. Your response will address both items: dispute the Brightline double-count with evidence, and agree to the Fifth Third Bank addition. ---
2. Your recommended path
**The honest path here is a split response: agree on one item, dispute the other.** The $112 Fifth Third Bank interest income was omitted and you agree it should be added. That is straightforward. The Brightline Media $18,500 discrepancy is a documentation problem, not a real underreporting. You have the invoices, the bank deposits, and — critically — both 1099-NEC forms showing the original and the corrected version for the same work. That evidence directly explains why two forms appear in IRS records for one payment. Your response should present that evidence clearly and ask the IRS to count the income once. **What this means for the proposed amounts:** If the IRS accepts your dispute on the Brightline item, the only additional income would be the $112 Fifth Third Bank interest. The proposed additional tax of $4,812 and the proposed penalty of $962 are driven primarily by the $18,500 double-count. Once that is resolved, the remaining understatement from the $112 omission would be far below the substantial-understatement threshold for individuals (the greater of 10% of the required tax or $5,000) — meaning the accuracy-related penalty may not apply at all to the remaining amount. You should say so explicitly in your response. **Your deadline is September 2, 2026.** Mail your response at least a week before that date — the date printed on the notice governs. If you need more time, the notice's reply options include sending an extension request. ---
Why it’s shaped this way
- Grounded in the IRS’s own pages. Every procedural claim — deadlines, response mechanics, escalation sequences, relief rules — comes from a verified reference for your notice code, with the source pages linked. We never invent a rule, a statistic, or an outcome.
- The penalty-relief rules are handled by rules. First-time abatement never applies to a CP2000’s accuracy-related penalty — a distinction that’s easy to get wrong. Which relief request your pack makes is decided by tested rules, not by whatever sounds plausible.
- We turn money away. Identity theft, a Statutory Notice of Deficiency, criminal-investigation language, numbers you can’t trace, an open business exam, or more than $25,000 at stake — we refuse the sale before payment and tell you what kind of professional to hire.
- Never your SSN. The finished letter carries a blank you fill in by hand. We don’t want your SSN, your documents, or your logins — typed answers only.
- You stay the author. NoticeCheck prepares documents; you review, sign, and send them personally. We never speak to the IRS for anyone, never file anything, and never promise an outcome.
Your data
The free decoder stores nothing. If you buy a pack, we use your typed answers only to generate it. See our privacy policy.
Support
Reply to any email from us and a person-readable answer comes back — or hit the feedback button on any page. Common questions are in the FAQ, including refund conditions.