There's a familiar moment for any business owner who has been operating for more than a few years. You walk to the mailbox and find an envelope from the IRS. Your first thought is some variation of "this can't be good." Sometimes you're right. More often, you're wrong — but only if you handle the first forty-eight hours correctly.

Most IRS notices are routine. The IRS computer matched something on your return against a third-party source — a 1099, a W-2, a 1098 mortgage interest statement — and found a discrepancy. The notice is asking you to explain it. Sometimes the IRS is right. Sometimes you are. And sometimes you're both wrong about a different thing entirely.

What turns a routine notice into a problem is silence. The notice has a response deadline. Miss it, and the IRS doesn't ask again — they move on to whatever the next escalation step is, and those steps get expensive fast.

The first letter is rarely the emergency. The second one — the one that comes after the first letter was ignored — almost always is.

Hour zero: open the envelope. Most owners don't. They see the IRS return address and the envelope sits on a counter for three weeks. By the time it's opened, the response window is half gone. Open it the day it arrives. Read it once, slowly.

The top of the notice tells you three things: what kind of notice it is (the letter code, like CP2000 or LT11), what tax year it relates to, and the response deadline. Note all three.

Hours one to twenty-four: figure out what they're asking. The most common notice types and what they actually mean:

CP2000 — the IRS computer found something on a 1099 or W-2 that doesn't match what you reported. Usually a missed income item. Most CP2000s are resolved by either agreeing (and paying), partially agreeing (paying some), or disagreeing in writing (and providing documentation).

CP14 — you owe a balance the IRS believes is unpaid. Often this happens when a payment was misapplied or didn't post on time. Sometimes resolved with a single phone call.

LT11 or Letter 1058 — the IRS is preparing to levy. This is serious. You have thirty days from the date of the letter to respond before they can freeze accounts or garnish receivables.

Letter 566 or Form 4564 — the IRS is opening an audit (formally called an examination). They want documentation for specific items on a specific return.

Letter 525 — the audit is concluding and the IRS is proposing changes to the return.

Each one has a different response, but the first move is the same: identify the type and the deadline, and don't miss either.

Hours twenty-four to forty-eight: file a power of attorney. If the notice is anything more serious than a simple CP14 (which you can usually resolve yourself with a phone call or an online payment), get a Form 2848 in place with your tax preparer or advisor. The form takes ten minutes to fill out. It authorizes them to talk to the IRS on your behalf — and the moment it's on file, the IRS is required to contact them instead of you.

This matters for two reasons. First, the IRS calls back on their own schedule, not yours, and missing a return call can be interpreted as nonresponsiveness. Second, the conversations are technical, and a single misstatement on the phone can change the outcome of the case.

The follow-through. Once the power of attorney is in place and the notice type is identified, the actual response depends on what they're asking. Some are resolved with a single letter. Some require months of back-and-forth. Some require an in-person examination at an IRS office.

But the case is now being managed, not ignored. The thirty-day clocks are tracked. The documentation is being assembled. And the conversation is happening between your representative and the IRS, not between you and someone you've never met asking questions you don't know how to answer.

The first letter is rarely the emergency. The second one — the one that comes after the first letter was ignored — almost always is.