Facing criticism from Congress, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has issued a statement to taxpayers that they can ignore a notice asserting they had not yet filed a 2019 tax return. Nearly 260,000 of the CP59 notices have been mailed by the IRS. But Congressional leaders pointed out that the IRS is far behind in processing 2019 tax returns, with a backlog of an estimated 7 million, making it entirely possible that those receiving delinquency notices may simply be waiting for the IRS to get around to processing their tax return.
Due to pandemic related shutdowns, the IRS has not completed processing all 2019 returns at this time. Therefore, the CP59 notices should not have been sent because some portion of the recipients may actually have filed a return that is still being processed. People who filed their 2019 return but nevertheless received the CP59 notice can disregard the letter and do not need to take any action.
If you received a CP59 delinquency notification from the IRS and are not certain about whether or not to respond, please contact Gray, Gray & Gray at (781) 407-0300.
