Whew! - I was right, but it took some time

[BulldogTom]

I have a long time client, one of my favorite and most profitable, who had an issue on the 2022 tax return.  I prepared the return in Feb 2023 but the IRS sent the client a larger refund in Mar 2023 than I calculated.   I went over the return and could not find anything that was improperly entered.   I told the client that the IRS would send a letter of explanation for the change and please let me see a copy of it because I wanted to know what they changed and how I missed it.   In June of 2023 I followed up, no letter.   Last year when we did the 2023 return I followed up, no letter from the IRS.

Today, I got a note from the client that he got an IRS notice for the 2022 return acknowledging they made a mistake and would he please pay them back for their error.

2 takeaways from this for me:
1 - I was right which makes me feel better &
2 - the IRS makes mistakes, even in the e-file environment.   The clients still need us.

Tom
Longview, TX

[Medlin Software, Dennis]

Indeed, the IRS is human operated and thus imperfect. Despite many in my business saying it cannot happen, it is absolutely true things get lost, and mistakes made. Their system read one of my Q3 941's as being for Q2 and ADDED it to Q2. So I got an underpay for Q2, and for Q3. The "experts" say the IRS rejects and 941 after the first, which I can say is not always the case.

There was one year where a significant number of my customers at one 941 processing centers reported the IRS had no record of their returns. Clearly, there was a data loss, which was later also shared by industry insiders to me.