The Decoder
Pick the code, type the date printed on the letter, and read it the way a person would explain it: what it is, what it is not, how serious, when your answer is due, what happens if it sits, and the first move.
No upload. No account. Nothing about you is asked for or stored — the code and the date are all this needs.
It sits at the top of the letter — CP or LT followed by numbers (CP2000, LT11), or a letter number like 1058.
Deadlines run from this date, not from the day the letter reached you.
Reading your result
A statement or a record. Nothing to pay, nothing to prove. File it and move on.
Real, but not urgent. A simple, on-time answer closes it.
Money or rights are in play. Ignoring it moves you up the ladder.
A right with an expiry date, or a levy step with your name on it.
The last stop before the IRS can take money or file its claim. The deadline on this letter is the deadline.
The clock is counted from the date on the letter. Where the law protects a deadline that lands on a weekend or federal holiday — the hearing clock, the Tax Court clock, the math-error clock — the decoder moves it to the next business day and tells you it did. Where the date is simply the IRS's printed response target, it says that instead.
The ladder is where the letter sits on the road from first bill to levy. Every notice page shows what came before yours and what arrives next if it goes unanswered — so 'how serious' is never a guess.
Browse all 42 notices instead →
The free decoder tells you what the letter means and when it is due. The Kit is the doing: response letters for every notice family, the penalty-relief scripts, the payment-plan and Offer in Compromise reality checks, and the proof habits that keep a sent letter from becoming a lost argument.
Get the IRSLetterDecoded Kit — $39
One-time payment. No subscription. Education only — we are not a tax firm, and this is not tax advice.
Top corner of the first page — a CP or LT number (CP2000, LT11), or 'Letter' followed by a number (Letter 1058). It is also the code the IRS itself uses on its 'understanding your notice' pages.
Because almost every clock in tax mail runs from the date printed on the letter — not the day it reached your mailbox. Type the date and the decoder counts the actual calendar deadline, including the rule that moves a deadline that lands on a weekend or federal holiday to the next business day, where the law gives you that protection.
The statutory rights clocks: the 30 days to request a Collection Due Process hearing, the 90 days to petition the Tax Court, and the 60 days to undo a math-error change. Ordinary 'please respond by' dates are targets the IRS prints — the decoder says so plainly instead of pretending they carry the same protection.
No. The decoder runs entirely in your browser. There is no account, no upload, and no form that sends your code or date to us — by design, because a letter from the IRS carries information nobody should be collecting from scared people at midnight.