Got this letter today

There should be a phone number on the letter, perhaps with a range of times. Call the IRS and ask them.

In your case, it's not the group you post to, but lack of information provided, that is hindering your search for an explanation.

For starters, why don't you tell us what period is "shown above"?

Did you file a tax return? If so, then you "claimed" a whole bunch of things. You repeatedly insist you didn't claim anything, if you remain stuck on this point then you're wasting your time seeking any further explanation of what claim is being disallowed.

If you sincerely want a good answer, you need to further describe what, if anything, was entered in the "credits" or "payments" section of your tax return, and what dollar amount or other information is included in the letter from the IRS. Your statement that "It really doesn't say much more" is not conducive to a useful reply. You are asking for help with something you don't understand, and yet presuming to make a decision about what is relevant and what is not.

It could be as simple as claiming an economic stimulus rebate credit on your 2008 return when you already received the advance payment in 2008.

-Mark Bole

Mark Bole wrote: ...

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Then again, OP could have received a letter similar to the one I did that had no amounts nor any explanation of what, specifically, was the issue, only an adjustment amount for additional tax supposedly owed that makes no sense from any figures on the return.

A phone call elicited a confused respondent who couldn't ascertain from the electronic files available to him what initiated the letter nor the underlying computations that generated the amount.

Upshot was, he did stick in an 8-week extension to the time to respond and suggested to write a letter asking for clarification. Still waiting...

But the letter at least indicated what tax year it was for, right? Our OP steadfastly refuses to divulge *any* details of the letter.

It turns out a simple search of the archives of this group gives a pretty good answer, as two different respondents both say the same thing (see quotes below).

Maybe our OP is a victim of identity theft...or just clueless?

"Whenever a statute-barred return showing a refund is filed, IRS routinely issues a 105C letter formally disallowing the overpayment from being refunded to the taxpayer or being applied to any other tax year, whether it's before or after the statute-barred year. "

"As for the older years, tax years 2000 and prior, IRS will send her a Letter 105C for each year that formally denies the statute-barred refund. "

-Mark Bole

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Yes, it did have that...

My newswerver only has the original post, no followups from OP so couldn't really assess refusal/no data or just vanished.

I thought (and still think) it most peculiar in my situation the letter was so worthless in explaining the perceived problem. I'm almost positive there was a data entry error and a crossing of communications in the mail underlying the problem but it's yet TBD.

Situation had to do w/ electronic filing original return w/ a small overpayment requested to be credited to next year's estimated payments. Very shortly after the submittal I realized had inadvertently included

4th quarter estimated from previous tax year and missed both the 4th quarter current year and one other quarterly payment so actually was owed sizable refund. Owing to that size and being less than week since filing, preparer agreed it was probably wise to amend the return. By the time that amended return was received had gotten a correction notice where IRS software had determined correct estimates and issued proper refund.

I'm thinking then when the amended return got there, it then screwed the system up royally since the correction requested had already been made. The amended return was unable to be viewed by the phone response people which didn't help.

Anyway, just a comment that I could have believed a letter that had nothing useful in determining to what it referred, specifically, was quite possible... :)

Whether it was really so in OP's case is another question, agreed...

He also posted in misc.taxes, I was including that thread too.

[...]

I understand. It is pretty weak that the IRS web site, while listing some types of letters and their meaning, does not have an index of all of them...it's not like they don't have the information available.

What I was responding to was the OP's request for help with understanding a letter, coupled with his assertion that it couldn't possibly be related to anything he did and that he didn't need to divulge anything else about the letter in order to get help.

-Mark Bole