Letter 6612: The IRS Is Auditing Your ERC Claim

What the notice actually says

Letter 6612 notifies a business that the IRS is auditing a return reporting an adjustment or claim for refund involving the Employee Retention Credit, and that the IRS is holding the ERC until the audit results are in. The IRS's own page states the letter and its enclosed forms "explain the information you must send to the IRS" — the specific list is in the letter itself, not summarized generically here, because it varies by case. Responses can typically go back by upload to a website named in the letter, by fax, or by mail, depending on what the specific letter instructs.

What actually triggered it

Letter 6612 goes out when the IRS selects a filed ERC claim — whether an original return or an adjustment such as an amended employment tax return — for examination and needs documentation to verify the credit before releasing it. Selection for this kind of audit does not by itself mean the claim was fraudulent or even likely wrong; it means the IRS wants supporting records before paying it out.

What Letter 6612 does not cover

Letter 6612 does not state a specific number of days to respond on the IRS's general explainer page — that deadline is printed on the letter itself and should be read directly from the document received, not assumed from a typical audit-response window. It also does not resolve the claim on its own; supplying complete documentation starts the review, but the actual determination comes after the IRS evaluates what the taxpayer submits. And it does not say what happens if documentation is incomplete or missing — treat any gap in what the letter asks for as a reason to respond early rather than wait and hope it goes unnoticed.

What people mistake Letter 6612 for

Letter 6612 is easy to conflate with an ERC disallowance letter — it is not one. Letter 105-C and Letter 106-C are the actual disallowance notices, issued after a determination is made; Letter 6612 comes earlier, while the IRS is still gathering the documentation needed to make that determination. Receiving 6612 does not mean the claim has been denied — it means the review that could end in a disallowance, a partial disallowance, or full allowance has just started.

Where this rule comes from

Letter 6612 is documented directly on the IRS's own Understanding your letter 6612 page, last reviewed December 5, 2025. If the audit response deadline on your own letter is approaching and documentation is not ready, review it with a tax professional promptly. The IRS states plainly that a taxpayer can call the toll-free number on the letter to withdraw the claim after determining, while preparing the response, that the ERC was not actually owed. That determination has to come from the taxpayer's own review of the facts — not from an assumption that contesting the audit would fail. Made on that basis, withdrawing is a materially simpler path than letting an examination run its course to a disallowance letter and then facing the IRC §6532 suit deadline that follows one.

That downstream deadline is worth understanding now, before an audit reaches a disallowance. Per the IRS page Understanding Letter 105-C, the two-year suit clock runs from the date printed on the disallowance letter itself — not from Letter 6612’s date, and not from when it’s opened — and the IRS separately asks for an informal dispute within 30 days of that later letter to help protect the two-year window, though missing the 30 days does not by itself end the two-year right. Knowing that timeline in advance is what makes responding to Letter 6612 promptly worth the effort: a slow response to this letter shortens no legal deadline directly, but it pushes the eventual disallowance letter — and its own two-year clock — later into an audit that could otherwise have been resolved, or avoided, sooner.

Common Questions