IRS Notice CP75 is a letter telling you the IRS is auditing your return by mail to verify the Earned Income Tax Credit, and usually related refundable credits, before releasing that portion of your refund. You have 30 days from the date on the notice to send documents proving you qualified for the credits you claimed.1Internal Revenue Service. IRS CP75 Notice It is not an accusation of fraud. Respond with the right paperwork and the audit typically ends there.
What the Notice Actually Is
CP75 opens a correspondence examination, meaning an audit conducted entirely through the mail rather than a face-to-face meeting. The IRS selects returns for this review through computer screening, random sampling, and mismatches between your return and information reported by employers and other payers.2Internal Revenue Service. Understanding Your CP75A Notice The examiner is not reviewing every line on your return. The focus is on specific refundable credits.
During the review, the IRS holds the refund amount tied to those credits. That typically includes the Earned Income Tax Credit, the Additional Child Tax Credit, and in some cases the Recovery Rebate Credit.3Internal Revenue Service. Understanding Your CP75 Notice Any part of your refund not related to the credits under review should be released on the normal schedule. The held amount stays frozen until the IRS finishes reviewing your documents.
You may see a closely related notice called CP75A. It works the same way and follows the same deadline, but covers additional items beyond the EITC, such as filing status or other credits.4Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 654, Understanding Your CP75 or CP75A Notice, Request for Supporting Documentation
What You Need to Prove
The forms enclosed with the notice, especially Form 886-H-EIC, list the documents that count. For EITC with qualifying children, the IRS is verifying four things about each child: relationship, age, residency, and that the child did not file a joint return for the year (unless only to claim a refund).5Internal Revenue Service. Qualifying Child Rules for the Earned Income Tax Credit
The relationship test covers your son, daughter, stepchild, foster child, sibling, half-sibling, or a descendant of any of them, such as a grandchild or niece. The age test requires the child to be under 19 at the end of the year, under 24 if a full-time student, or permanently and totally disabled at any age. The residency test requires that the child lived with you in the United States for more than half the year. Temporary absences for school, medical care, or military service still count as time lived together.
The IRS also verifies your earned income. Wage earners need W-2s. Self-employed filers need records that back up Schedule C, meaning bank statements, invoices, and expense receipts covering the full year.
Gathering Your Documents
Residency is where most CP75 responses go wrong. No single document conclusively settles it, so you build a picture from overlapping records. School enrollment and attendance records showing your address are strong. So are medical records, childcare provider statements, and letters from a landlord, social services agency, or place of worship confirming the child lived at your address.5Internal Revenue Service. Qualifying Child Rules for the Earned Income Tax Credit More records covering more of the year make a stronger case.
For relationship and age, a birth certificate usually covers both. Adoption papers, a placement agency letter for a foster child, or court custody documents work as well. If the child was not born in the United States, provide a birth certificate or immigration documents translated into English.
Send copies. Never mail originals. Every document should clearly relate to the specific tax year listed on the notice.
How to Send Your Response
The notice gives you a mailing address for the IRS campus handling your case. Include the tear-off stub, or a cover sheet with the CP75 notice number and your Social Security number, so the examiner can match documents to your file. If you mail, use certified mail with a return receipt. That receipt proves the date the IRS received your package.
You can also submit electronically through the IRS Document Upload Tool, which accepts JPG, PNG, or PDF files and returns a confirmation.6Internal Revenue Service. IRS Document Upload Tool Either method works. Upload is faster and removes postal delay. Whichever you choose, organize the documents so the examiner can easily connect each one to the item it supports.
If 30 Days Is Not Enough
Call the phone number printed on the notice before the deadline expires. The IRS can grant additional time.4Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 654, Understanding Your CP75 or CP75A Notice, Request for Supporting Documentation Silence is treated as a decision not to substantiate the credits, and the IRS will move ahead with disallowing them.
After You Respond
Review takes several weeks and can stretch longer during peak filing season. Three outcomes are possible:
- Full acceptance. The IRS verifies your eligibility and releases the held refund, generally within eight weeks of closing the case, as long as you do not owe other taxes or debts the IRS is required to collect.4Internal Revenue Service. Topic No. 654, Understanding Your CP75 or CP75A Notice, Request for Supporting Documentation
- Partial adjustment. The IRS accepts some items and disallows others, producing a smaller refund or a balance due. An examination report explains the changes.
- Full disallowance. The IRS proposes removing the credits entirely, increasing your tax liability. You receive an audit report showing the proposed changes.1Internal Revenue Service. IRS CP75 Notice
If the audit delays your refund beyond 45 days after the original due date of your return, the IRS owes you interest on the held amount, added automatically when the refund is released.7eCFR. 26 CFR 301.6611-1 – Interest on Overpayments You do not need to file a separate claim for it.
If the IRS Disallows Your Credits
You have two paths if you disagree with the examination report, and the order matters.
Start with the IRS Independent Office of Appeals, which operates separately from the examiners. For disputed amounts of $25,000 or less in tax, penalties, and interest combined, you can request an appeal by submitting Form 12203 or a brief written statement explaining why you disagree.8Internal Revenue Service. Publication 3498-A, The Examination Process (Audits by Mail) Send the request within the timeframe stated in the examination report. Many correspondence audit disputes end here.
If Appeals does not resolve the case, or if you skip Appeals, the IRS will eventually send a Statutory Notice of Deficiency. That is the formal document that opens the door to Tax Court. You have 90 days from the date on that notice to file a petition with the U.S. Tax Court, or 150 days if you are outside the United States.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 6213 – Restrictions Applicable to Deficiencies; Petition to Tax Court Tax Court lets you contest the tax before paying it. For disputes of $50,000 or less per tax year, the court offers a simplified small case procedure.8Internal Revenue Service. Publication 3498-A, The Examination Process (Audits by Mail)
The 90-day deadline is absolute. The IRS cannot extend it, and continuing to talk with examiners or Appeals does not pause the clock. Miss it and the tax gets assessed and collection begins.
Future-Year Consequences
Beyond losing the credits for the year under audit, the IRS can bar you from claiming the EITC in future years if the disallowance rests on more than an ordinary mistake. A finding of reckless or intentional disregard of the rules triggers a two-year ban. A finding of fraud triggers a ten-year ban.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 32 – Earned Income These bans do not apply to honest errors, but any taxpayer who has the credit disallowed through the deficiency process has to provide additional documentation to claim it on future returns, and the IRS will look more closely at those returns.
Free Help
Responding to a CP75 audit is a lot to handle alone, especially if English is not your first language or you prepared the return yourself. Low Income Taxpayer Clinics offer free or low-cost help with audits, appeals, and Tax Court cases, and they can represent you before the IRS.11Internal Revenue Service. Low Income Taxpayer Clinics To qualify, your income generally must fall below a set threshold, and the amount in dispute is usually under $50,000. You can find a clinic through the IRS website or by calling the Taxpayer Advocate Service.