Their version of the year is built from what was reported to them. Your receipts were not in that pile, so the year they assembled can look harsher than the year you lived.
A substitute return can omit deductions the person still has. Filing their own return is how those figures enter the year. That is the quiet reason to file, even when the letter already states a number.
The wage and income transcript lists forms the IRS already holds. If a substitute was assessed, the account transcript is the next one to pull. You can see what they placed on the account, and you can set your receipts beside it.
A deficiency notice can follow that path. Read the number printed on your letter. The IRS past due page is where the label is confirmed. That page calls the notice on this path a Notice of Deficiency, CP3219N. Responding as a representative is outside this desk. The time allowed to respond is on that page and on your letter, so it should be read there rather than remembered.
Source. A substitute can omit deductions, a deficiency notice can follow, a refund claim is generally three years from the return due date, and a lender may ask for filed returns. Read 29 September 2026 at https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/filing-past-due-tax-returns
Source. Get the wage and income transcript before rebuilding a year. The reader orders it. This desk does not log in as the reader. Read 29 September 2026 at https://www.irs.gov/individuals/get-transcript
Putting the years into one stack and preparing them is the work this address does. Answering a levy, a lien or a deficiency notice on your behalf is representative work that belongs with a firm that does it, and bargaining a balance down is not something that happens here. No CPA license sits at this desk, so signed reports on statements go elsewhere too. All of that is spelled out at more length on the disclosures page.
It is the number they proposed from the forms they had. It is not yet the year with your deductions in it.
We can help you prepare the return that puts those amounts in. We do not answer the notice as your representative.
The number on the letter, copied as printed, is the useful line. We will not answer it for you.
You will be talking to the Steven Palmieri practice.