IRS notice review and response drafting

Full read of the notice, not just the summary line, so nothing buried on page two of a multi-page notice gets missed. Confirmation of the actual response deadline against the date printed on the notice rather than an assumption based on when it arrived in your mailbox. A pull of the specific supporting documentation the notice references, whether that is a 1099, a bank deposit record, or a prior year's schedule. A drafted response package: cover explanation, the named form if one applies, and the supporting attachment in the sequence the notice expects. Handoff to our enrolled agent or CPA partner for review before anything goes out, and representation through that partner under a signed Form 2848 for anything beyond a routine correction. A written log of the notice, our read of it, and how it closed, kept in your file for reference if a similar notice shows up in a later year.

You forward the notice the day it arrives, by upload or email; we do not wait for a scheduled check-in on something with a real deadline attached. Within one to two business days we tell you plainly what the notice is asking, the actual due date, and what we need from you, usually a short list of documents you already have. We build the draft response against your books. If the fix is routine, such as a documented 1099 you can show was already reported, the draft goes back to you or straight to our credentialed partner for a fast sign-off. If the notice signals something larger, an inconsistency across multiple years or a proposed adjustment with real dollars attached, we flag that explicitly before drafting anything, because the strategy changes. Once the response goes out, we track the case until the IRS or state confirms it is closed and file the resolution in your record.

Business owners and CPA-firm partners who received a notice and do not have the spare hours to parse IRS notice language against their own return, especially when the deadline is measured in weeks, not months. It fits a solo founder who got a CP2000 over a contractor payment that was reported twice, a small business that received a state underreporter notice, or an accounting firm that wants a documented response drafted and staged for their own signer's review rather than building it from scratch during busy season. It is not a fit for someone already deep into a full field audit or a criminal referral; those need direct representation from day one, which our enrolled agent or CPA partner provides separately.

A 1099-NEC or 1099-K reported by a payer does not match what was filed, usually because it was reported under a different entity name or an amount was double-counted, which we resolve by tracing the actual deposit and pulling the corresponding 1099 for comparison. A math-error notice adjusts a credit or deduction the software flagged, which we check against the return before agreeing or disputing it, since the IRS is sometimes right. A missing-schedule notice asks for a form that was left off the original filing, which we attach with the supporting numbers rather than resubmitting the whole return. A balance-due notice arrives with penalty and interest stacked on top of a number the client no longer recognizes, which we break apart into original tax, penalty, and interest so the client knows exactly what is owed and why before agreeing to anything.

We work from whatever your books already run on, most often QuickBooks Online or Xero, to trace the transactions a notice disputes. Drake Tax is used to cross-check the filed return against the notice's proposed figures. Adobe Acrobat handles the assembled response package and any scanned supporting documents. Where the case involves an IRS transcript, we coordinate with our transcript analysis service rather than duplicating that pull.

Notice review and response drafting is scoped against the notice, not billed as a flat menu item, since a one-page math-error notice and a multi-year underreporter notice take very different amounts of work. Reference the published rate card at /us/pricing for our standing tiers and add-ons; a notice response typically sits inside an existing monthly engagement for clients already on a bookkeeping plan, and is scoped separately for a one-off case. Any fee tied to representation itself, filing, or appearing before the IRS is set and billed directly by our enrolled agent or CPA partner, not by Finbryn.

Every notice gets a prompt acknowledgment and a plain-language read-back within one to two business days, before any drafting starts, so you know the real deadline before it's a problem. Every response draft is reviewed by our enrolled agent or CPA partner before it goes anywhere, and we log the notice, the draft, and the resolution in your file so a repeat notice in a future year starts from a documented history instead of a blank page. We also track our own miss rate on deadlines internally; a notice that slips past its due date because of something on our side is the one failure mode we treat as unacceptable.

Send the notice as soon as it arrives, ideally as a clear photo or scan of every page, front and back. We confirm the actual deadline and give you a plain-language summary within one to two business days. Drafting typically takes another one to five business days depending on how much documentation the notice requires and how far back it reaches into your books. If the notice needs our enrolled agent or CPA partner's signature or direct handling, that step is scheduled once the draft is ready, and we tell you the added time it needs rather than guessing.