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FYI those letters are, afaik at least, typically grossly overestimated. The number is meant to scare you into calling a CPA to straighten it out, essentially. So for anyone else with the same kind of letter, don't just pay unless you know that it's correct ahead of time.

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Note that this is a letter for an incorrect return, not an unfiled one.

I had one of those, and it specifically identified the error. When I went and checked the paperwork, the figure in the letter was precisely correct.

So, a tax filing life hack: fill $1 to all fields of the form and wait IRS to tell how much you actually need to pay?

Thanks for that tip. In our case, the error was due to a missing form, and when I corrected it in Turbo Tax, my number was close enough to the IRS number, so I called it a day.

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