The IRS does a terrible job with the information it does have. One year, I had a typo in my daughter’s social security number. The IRS sent me a note that her number didn’t match the previous year’s return. I assume that they believed the previous year’s number was right, but instead of saying “we’ve amended the return by using the social security number that appeared on last year’s return,” they said “we’ve amended the return by removing that dependent and recalculating taxes; if you disagree with your higher bill, you’ll need to send us the following paperwork with the correct social security number” (of course, “correct” meant “the number we already have on file” more or less, but I had to figure out what that number was by looking at my own copy of the previous year’s return). Luckily, the previous year’s number was correct; otherwise I would have had to amend the previous return and then refile the current year’s.