We Have Moved — Did You Tell the IRS?
Revised By: Whitney Ibarra
The Henssler Financial Group Position Paper
We are a mobile society — most of you have sent out those cute "We Have Moved" cards from your local card store, or at minimum, those less attractive green or yellow cards from the U.S. Postal Service. (The average mortgage is only about seven years because Americans keep moving.)
Have you informed the Internal Revenue Service of your move? The IRS is required to contact you at your "last known address." Most of us do not want to hear from them, but if they send you a notice of deficiency, you only have 90 days to file a petition with the court if you disagree with their notice.
The IRS has updated their Revenue Procedure regarding the taxpayer's "last known address." This term is not synonymous with the taxpayer's actual current address, which means that a notice of deficiency can be legally effective even if mailed to an old address and never received by the taxpayer.
Form 8822 - Notification of Change of Address
This is the IRS' equivalent of "we have moved." The IRS requires a "clear and concise written notification of a change of address" be sent to the Service Center serving the taxpayer's old address. Form 8822 Change of Address can be used to meet this requirement.
Last Known Address
Rev Proc 2001-18 says that the IRS generally will use the address on the most recently filed and properly processed return as the address of record. If a taxpayer files a return with new address information, the proper processing of the return will update the taxpayer's address of record. In general, a taxpayer's address of record will be updated for the name and taxpayer identification number under which the return is filed.
- The word "return" does not include applications for extension of time to file a return. A new address on Form 4868, Application for Automatic Extension of Time to File U.S. Individual Income Tax Return, will not be used to update the taxpayer's address of record.
- In general, a return will be considered properly processed after a 45-day processing period, which begins the day after the date of receipt of the return by an IRS Service Center.
- HOWEVER, due to the high volume of returns received during busy season, if a taxpayer provides new address information on any type of Form 1040 that is received after February 14 and before June 1, the return will be considered properly processed.