IRS Notice Review

Understand your IRS letter. Know your next steps.

A person at Gideon Tax reads your notice and writes you a plain-English explanation: what the IRS is saying, what it is asking for, the deadline it states, the amounts it shows, the documents to gather, and what to do next. $40 for one notice about one tax period, every page of it, with one brief follow-up question included.

You may not need this.

The IRS explains its own notices and letters, free, at irs.gov/individuals/understanding-your-irs-notice-or-letter. Many notices need nothing more than that page and a careful read. What you pay for here is a person reading your notice, every page of it, and writing to you about it.

What is included

  • What the IRS is saying, and what it is requesting.
  • The deadline stated in the notice.
  • The amounts shown, explained — without our having verified the underlying tax.
  • The documents you should gather.
  • Practical next steps, and when professional help beyond this is appropriate.
  • One brief follow-up question about the explanation.

What is not

  • Calling the IRS, or representing you before it.
  • Preparing or submitting a response, an amended return, an appeal or a court filing.
  • Reviewing your whole return, reconciling it, or verifying the tax the IRS proposes.
  • Ongoing case management, or any promise of an outcome.

A complex notice still gets an explanation at this price. Investigating or resolving what is behind it is a separate scope, agreed separately.

How it works

  1. Submit the notice — every page, including attachments — with your question, signed in to your Gideon Tax account. Uploads are private: only you and the reviewer can open them. You may black out Social Security and bank account numbers first, as long as the rest of the notice stays readable.
  2. Screening, free. The reviewer checks that the notice is in scope, that every page is there, and how urgent it is. Screening is not the paid review. If something is missing you can add pages; if it is out of scope you are told why, and nothing is charged.
  3. Pay $40 through a checkout link, once the request is accepted.
  4. The review, by a person, delivered privately in your account. E-mail only tells you an update is waiting; nothing from the notice goes by e-mail.
  5. One follow-up question about the explanation, answered the same way.

No turnaround is promised. Your request's page shows where it stands, and a deadline that is close, past or unknown is flagged for the reviewer's attention when it arrives.

Who reads it

A tax preparer at Gideon Tax. The reviewer is not an enrolled agent, attorney or CPA, is not affiliated with the IRS, and cannot represent you before the IRS. This is an explanation, not advice to rely on in place of a representative where one is needed, and the explanation says when that is.

Questions

What is included?
The explanation of one notice about one tax period, all its pages, in the nine parts above, and one follow-up question. $40, once, after screening.
Can you fix the issue, or contact the IRS for me?
No. This service does not call the IRS, respond on your behalf, or represent you. The explanation tells you what the notice asks and what you can do; if it needs a representative, it says so.
What if my deadline is close?
Say so when you submit; a deadline within 14 days, already past, or that you are not sure of is flagged for the reviewer's attention. Submitting a request does not extend any IRS deadline. If the date is very close, read the notice's own instructions and act on them now; the explanation does not replace that.
What if I have several letters?
Each notice about each tax period is its own request. Two notices about the same period that are really one matter can be submitted together and the reviewer will say at screening whether one review covers them.
Is free help available?
Yes. The IRS's own notice lookup explains each notice number. The Taxpayer Advocate Service, Low Income Taxpayer Clinics and the IRS's phone line on the notice are free. Nobody has to pay to understand an IRS notice; this is for people who want a person to read theirs.

Your documents

Stored encrypted, opened only by you and the reviewer, never put in an e-mail, a log or a public address, and not sent to any outside service. We do not ask for your full Social Security number, IRS password or IRS account credentials. The pages are deleted 90 days after a request is closed; the explanation stays in your account.

This service opens soon. The IRS's own notice lookup, linked above, is there now.