Small Businesses Receive IRS Letter 5036 – Under Reporting of Income

TaxConnections Picture - Guy Reading LetterlThe Internal Revenue Service has over the last week or so started sending Letter 5036 to small businesses questioning the possible under reporting of income. The letter looks intimidating as it’s header states “Notification of Possible Income Under Reporting” and starts with “Your gross receipts may be under reported.”

Rest assured this letter is systematically generated. Basically the IRS matched the information reported on Form 1099-Ks that were sent to the business with income reported on the tax return. Don’t be threatened or upset by this letter but do recognize that you will be required to provide a written explanation, or a completed Form 14420, Verification of Reported Income, explaining why the portion of the gross receipts from credit card payments and other 1099-K transactions was higher than expected. Failure to respond might result in a proposed assessment or further compliance action, so please respond.

My advise is that this might be a job for the accountant, controller or tax practitioner signing the income tax return as accuracy is paramount.

Enrolled with the United States Treasury Department to practice before the IRS, governed by rules stipulated in United States Treasury Circular 230. As a Federally Authorized Tax Practitioner and a tax appeals specialist my Enrolled Agent License #85353 is issued by the United States Treasury. With this license I work for U.S. taxpayers everywhere to resolve tax matters and de-escalate stress about taxes or tax disputes for individuals and corporations with federal and state issues.

Facebook Twitter LinkedIn 

Subscribe to TaxConnections Blog

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.