Tax debt help center

A CP2000 letter, “Notice of Underreported Income,” is not a formal audit that would require a full tax examination by the IRS. It is, however, an automatically generated letter, which is a notice from the IRS essentially saying, “We don’t think you reported all of your income so we are proposing a change to your return.”

Deficiency is a common issue associated with tax returns. A tax deficiency occurs when there’s a difference in the amount of tax you report on your return and the amount the IRS calculates you owe – and the IRS will inform you of this discrepancy with a notice.

The idea of an IRS audit can be frightening no matter how diligent you are about reporting your income to the IRS. While the risk of being audited is quite low for most (statistics indicate that in 2016, the IRS audited only about 0.5 percent of all returns), being aware of what audits are, why they are conducted, and how to know that you are being audited is essential for every taxpayer.