CP5071
read it properlyCP5071 series — identity verification (formerly Letter 5071C)
A Form 1040 was filed under your number and the IRS wants to know whether it was you before it processes the return.
No day count is published.
If it passes. Until you verify, the IRS will not process the return, issue a refund or credit an overpayment.
Why you got it
A return was filed under your Social Security number or ITIN and tripped the identity filters.
What rights it carries
None conferred. This is a processing hold, not a determination.
Do you have to respond?
Required for the return to move.
The mistake people make
If you did not file that return, this is an identity theft event and needs Form 14039, not just a verification. Note the renumbering: the IRS now identifies this family as the CP5071 series, and its verification service says to use it only for a CP5071 series notice or Letter 5447C.
Verify online at irs.gov/verifyreturn — have the notice, the return in question, a prior year return, and the supporting forms.
If crypto is why this arrived, the number on it is probably wrong.
Your exchange reports what you sold for and leaves the cost box blank, so any figure the IRS computes from it treats every coin as though it cost you nothing. Rebuild the basis from your own transaction history — free — and see the real number before the deadline above runs out.
Notices that arrive around this one
CP2006 — A receipt. The IRS has your correspondence and will tell you what it decides. Letter 4883C — The same identity verification as the CP5071 series, with one operative difference: this one has no online path at all.Every notice in the library → Not sure it is really from the IRS? →
Sources: IRS — Understanding your CP5071 series notice · IRS — Identity and tax return verification service. Retrieved 2026-08-28. Where the IRS publishes no day count we say so rather than repeat a number we cannot source — the date printed on your own notice is the one that governs. ClearBasis is tax software, not a tax adviser, and this is information rather than advice.