January is the month to receive IRS information forms such as W-2s and 1099s. Inevitably, some of these forms are going to wrong. Who has the burden of proof to correct these errors? The answer is that it’s you, the taxpayer. IRC 7491 does shift the burden to the IRS, but only if you are in court and have introduced “credible evidence” with respect to the issue. Bottom line, you can save yourself a lot of time and headaches by fixing the problem yourself before the IRS computer systems issue a letter.
This is a two-step process:
- Contact the issuer and ask them to correct or amend the form. If the issuer will not fix their error or cannot be contacted, move on to step 2.
- Gross up the income on your return to cover the error and take a deduction to offset it. Here is the critical part of this step – include a statement explaining the problem and deduction. Failure to explain and document this error could get you off on a very bad footing in an audit.
You could, of course, call the IRS and ask for their assistance with this problem. Lots of luck even getting them on the phone.
