2019 extensions

Anyone else seeing the recent letter from the IRS that the 2019 extension request was approved?  Hearing from many of our clients and we actually received a letter today for our own plan!  anybody know what gives??

pandemic backlog?

I suppose - but our extension was filed 07/13/2020 so that's quite a backlog!  Though I shouldn't be surprised I guess with the snail's pace of mail these days....

I think threads like this have come up on more occasions than one and that was in non-pandemic years. I believe a number of IRS processing sites including the one that receives and processes 5558s was completely shutdown for a long stretch in 2020.

Just heard that our SD office has received a couple of these.

We also received letters for 4 of our clients and one for our own plan.  Tried calling the IRS but the recorded message said that they are experiencing very high volume and that i should try again tomorrow. 

What is there to call about? It's just a form letter acknowledging receipt of the 5558 and asking the client to make sure they file on time. Of course it's a little silly the date being so late and all but hey that's the profession we're in!

I agree, no need to call IRS.  They are processing late (or later than the normal late) because the IRS had offices closed down and a lot of mail went to storage unopened.   

The letters we received indicated that they are denying our request for an extension of time.  It goes on to say that "We can't approve your request because you didn't file your request on or before the due date of the return."      We mailed out all of our extensions on 07/29/2020 certified mail.  Not sure if people are receiving these letters?

15 minutes ago, ktrombino said:

The letters we received indicated that they are denying our request for an extension of time.  It goes on to say that "We can't approve your request because you didn't file your request on or before the due date of the return."      We mailed out all of our extensions on 07/29/2020 certified mail.  Not sure if people are receiving these letters?

This one you do need to contact the IRS on.  This happens from time to time and you can usually solve it quickly by providing proof that you mailed it timely.  If you have a lot of them, you can ask the IRS to send a list of all clients in the batch on electronic media instead of responding to each one individually.

Well, this is no fun. Have already assisted 2 upset/frustrated clients who received these much delayed letters and believed we had dropped the ball, because you know, they don't tend to read the letters and its not necessarily easy for them to always understand the letters. I hope there aren't many, many more of these on the way.

6 minutes ago, Kirsten Curry said:

Well, this is no fun. Have already assisted 2 upset/frustrated clients who received these much delayed letters and believed we had dropped the ball, because you know, they don't tend to read the letters and its not necessarily easy for them to always understand the letters. I hope there aren't many, many more of these on the way.

If you submitted them around the same time, chances are they will get a notice.  I think they stopped processing  most of the mail in March 2020

We had two sets of 5558s sent out the same day in different packages on 7/29/2020.  One set is getting the acceptance letter, the other the denial letter.  We spoke with the IRS who requested we resend that batch with our proof of mailing.  She said in some cases the 5558s got stamped with the day they were opened, and not the postmark of the mailing.  

20 hours ago, Kirsten Curry said:

Well, this is no fun. Have already assisted 2 upset/frustrated clients who received these much delayed letters and believed we had dropped the ball, because you know, they don't tend to read the letters and its not necessarily easy for them to always understand the letters. I hope there aren't many, many more of these on the way.

Yes, I agree!  The first one I opened/received, I had a moment of panic.  Then I saw the Notice date and said "ah, our IRS is so 'on it'".

And this is such a slooow time of year for us 🤪 , we have so much time to be explaining the IRS's slackness to our clients.  ha ha

I just sent an e-mail to every one who we filed an extension basically telling them the IRS is way behind, don't worry about the notice you may receive, and to forward a copy to us for our records.