Underpayment of Estimated Tax

Forum|Forum|2 months ago
April 29, 2026
2 replies
13 views

We have multiple clients that received CP53E letters stating that they could not direct deposit their 2025 refund. These clients did not have a refund, instead they had tax due. We are seeing that the refund is from the IRS calculation of the penalty for underpayment of Estimated tax being lower that what was calculated in Lacerte. We have made no overrides to the penalty calculation. Why is the Lacerte numbers no longer matching the IRS? Is any

Lacerte Tax

BobKamman

Level 15

Disaster area

K

KatyOMaxAuthor

Level 2

Not this year for us. That was a problem a couple of years ago. Lacerte did not adjust for the delayed deadlines

BobKamman

Level 15

What are the client's ZIP Codes? Are you sure they are not in a declared disaster area?

B

Bobby200

Level 4

FWIW:

Fake CP53E notices are a major 2026 scam, where criminals send nearly identical copies of the legitimate IRS CP53E letter—which notifies taxpayers their refund can’t be deposited due to missing or incorrect bank details. The fraudulent versions include QR codes, urgent deadlines, or links to fake websites designed to steal banking information. While over 1.4 million real CP53E notices were sent in early 2026 due to the federal phaseout of paper checks, scammers exploit this by mailing fake letters or contacting people via phone, email, or text—methods the real IRS does not use for this notice.