You've successfully filed your tax return. Thank goodness you won't have to think about those pesky taxes again until next year! You're busy living your life and then one day you get a piece of mail that looks concerning. Uh oh... You received something from the IRS. You slowly open it to see if the police are coming to lock you up (j/k... sort of). Instead, you find that the IRS has randomly decided that you owe them some extra money / you didn't fill out a form correctly / you failed to file a tax return so they filed one for you or whichever of the other hundreds of reasons why they may contact you.

Here's what you should do once you've received correspondence from the IRS:

Don't panic - Often the IRS sends correspondence that is just an administrative error on your part or their part. Before you go stressing yourself out too much, contact your CPA to see the best way to respond.
Contact your tax professional - Hopefully you've built a relationship with your accountant that allows for year round correspondence. Also, hopefully your tax preparer isn't just open during tax season. If your tax professional isn't around, feel free to contact us and we'll try to help you sort through the mess.
Decide what action needs to be taken - After you've met with your tax professional, they should help you sort through and decide if you owe money or if you just need to send a letter documenting why the IRS is incorrect.
Respond in a timely manner - Usually the IRS correspondence letters will have a date that you need to respond by. Make sure to figure out the game plan in plenty of time so you meet their deadlines.

Even though it's never fun to receive a letter from the IRS, don't get too worked up until you figure out if the problem is legitimate or if the IRS is wrong (more often than not it is some sort of matching error that is easy to clear up). Please contact us if you need help with responding to the IRS. We'd be glad to help!