IRS Notice CP53E

I only had one client call about this, we missed an estimated payment on her return so she IS due a refund, so hers made sense,  But im seeing reports of this in various tax professional message boards, its happening to LOTs of people.

I got my first call this morning.  Cient owed seven grand and the IRS wanted to know his bank account for his refund.  The IRS computers must be tired after a long tax season.

Yup. Got a couple so far. No refund. No estimated payments.

I have one client who got this letter.  We had not requested direct deposit. It  appeared genuine.  Then I saw an article on my news feed that this is the latest SCAM going around. The article said the the QR code was the give a way. Luckily my client did not use the QR code but went directly to the IRS website.  I have 40 years in the industry and the letter absolutely fooled me.

At least some of the letters are for correctly refunding some of the Underpayment of Estimated Tax penalty.

If you let the software calculate the Underpayment of Estimated Tax penalty, the software does NOT take into account (a) if the taxpayer is in a disaster area or (b) if the taxpayer paid the amount owed on their own before April 15th (unless you manually go in and change the date on the 2210).  Both scenarios result in the software calculating too large of a penalty, which means the taxpayer may be due a refund.

Yes, just received my first call this morning.  We applied the entire overpayment to 2026 so they were not due a refund.

I've had three calls so far.  I'm in NC.  I forgot that the Hurricane Helene disaster relief spilled into 2025 returns.  Two of these clients are due refunds due to the underpayment penalty calculating incorrectly on the return.

The third refused to direct deposit the refund.  Then he had trouble with the IRS online account and didn't complete that.  He can just wait for the refund.  I kinda hope it takes even longer that we've been told.  Karma and all that, you know?

This is bumped to the first page because people should read the parts about how, if it has a QR code, it's fake.  

so frustrating.  Some taxpayers are so upset when they get a letter from the IRS as it is.  To send something saying we can't deposit when they owe $20K is maddening.  Not to mention, not cost effictive. 

It seems this notice is related to EO 14247, Modernizing payments to and from America’s bank account, signed March 2025 (http://irs.gov/newsroom/modernizing-payments-to-and-from-americas-bank-account). The US Dept of Treasury, along with the IRS, is going to transition to fully electronic federal payments.

I think the IRS is sending notices now, even if the taxpayer it's being sent to has no refund due, to have most people have direct deposit set up for next year's tax season.