Identity, refunds & unfiled returns
An identity check: the IRS flagged the return filed under your name and froze it until you prove you're you. Verify, and processing resumes; don't, and the return (and any refund) sits suspended.
Handle it
An identity check: the IRS flagged the return filed under your name and froze it until you prove you're you. Verify, and processing resumes; don't, and the return (and any refund) sits suspended.
Why you got it: IRS filters flagged something about the return — income pattern, a new address, a first-time claim — and identity verification is the toll gate.
Not an accusation and not an audit. It's also not necessarily identity theft — filters catch honest returns constantly. But if you did NOT file that return, this letter is how you tell the IRS a thief did.
Your first move: Verify at the IRS's Identity Verification Service (reached from IRS.gov) or by the phone number on the letter, with the letter, the return for the year named, and a prior-year return in hand.
Every clock runs from this date — not from the day the letter reached you.
Fastest: IRS.gov identity verification, with the documents listed above.
The number on the letter; long waits in filing season — the letter and both returns in front of you.
If you didn't file, verification becomes a fraud report — follow through with the IP PIN the IRS offers.
Online via IRS.gov's identity verification page (type the address yourself — never from a link in a message), or the phone number printed on the letter.
This letter type is phished relentlessly. Type IRS.gov yourself. The IRS verification service never asks for gift cards, crypto, or a 'verification fee'.
The return is never processed, the refund is never released, and if the return was a thief's, it sits in your name until resolved. There is no version of ignoring this that ends well.
Where this sits on the ladder: This letter stands on its own track — see the collection ladder for the enforcement road.
One payment. No subscription. Yours to keep — every notice, every letter, every script.