TC 922: IRP Underreporter (Automated Underreporter Activity)

What the code actually does

TC 922 records that the Automated Underreporter program has touched a tax year. IRS Document 6209, Section 8A defines it as the "IRP Underreporter status transaction," a generated transaction that "posts to tax module balance section," and adds the detail that governs how it is read: "the transaction date and process codes are updated by subsequent TC 922." One TC 922 line is not one event. It is a running record that the system overwrites as the case moves.

AUR is document matching, not examination. IRM 4.19.3.2 describes the program as "the automated analysis and processing of potential underreported (U/R) and/or over-deducted (O/D) issues identified through information return (IR) matching," built by comparing the Individual Master File against the Information Returns Master File. A discrepancy between what a taxpayer reported and what a payer reported is what creates the case.

A TC 922 is not an assessment

Nothing is owed because a TC 922 posted. The code carries no dollar amount, it does not change the module balance, and Doc 6209 records that it "will not affect status history section" — the account does not move into a collection status because of it. It is review activity, and review activity that very often ends with no change at all.

The assessment, if one is ever made, is a different code entirely. The AUR program manual describes the closing path in terms of the adjustment transaction: IRM 4.19.3 instructs employees tracing a case to identify the originating campus "by the first two digits of the TC 290 DLN." So the sequence a practitioner should expect is a TC 922 that opens and updates, then — only if the case is worked to a change — a separate additional tax assessment posting under its own code. Reading the TC 922 itself as the bill is the single most common error made with it.

It is also not an audit, and the IRM is unusually direct about why. IRM 4.19.3.2 opens with an instruction to its own employees in capital letters: "AVOID ‘AUDITING’ RETURNS. All returns in the AUR inventory were previously screened for unallowable items and audit potential. They were not selected for action in either event." A return in AUR inventory is a return the Service already declined to audit.

The process code is the whole message

A bare TC 922 tells a practitioner almost nothing. The process codes appended to it tell them everything, and the one that matters is the last one in the string. IRM 21.2.4.3.43.1, AMRH11 Resolution, publishes the chart the Service reads it by, and it maps cleanly onto the questions a client actually asks.

No process code at all means "AUR does not have a case." Codes 01, 03, or 06 mean the case is pending and, in the IRM’s own careful phrasing, "the taxpayer may or may not receive a notice." Codes in the 10–18 and 21–29 bands mean the case "was closed without taxpayer contact" — it opened, it was worked, and it went away without anyone writing to the client. A large group including 39, 47, 48, 51, 52, 69–74 and 91–93 means the case "was worked and closed with no change to the tax liability and/or refundable credits."

Other codes are genuinely serious and should change what a practitioner does next. Codes 35, 36, 38, 62–64, 66, 82, 83, 85 and 86 mean the case "was closed to Exam." Codes 44, 72 and 84 mean it "was closed to Campus Fraud." Codes 46, 65 and 76 mean it "was closed to Criminal Investigation." Code 80 means it went to Appeals. And the band 09, 30, 34, 54, 55, 57–60, 75, 77–79, 81 and 95–99 means the case is simply open right now.

What TC 922 gets confused with

It gets confused with an examination indicator, because both mean "someone is looking at this year." They are different programs with different rights attached. An examination posts TC 420 or TC 424 and sets the -L freeze; AUR posts TC 922 and does not. If a TC 922 process code shows the case closed to Exam, a practitioner should expect one of those exam codes to appear as well — and the transition matters, because the correspondence-examination route and the AUR route reach a notice of deficiency by different paths.

It also gets confused with the notice it produces. The proposal a client receives is the CP2000, or in some cases the earlier CP2501 initial contact letter; the statutory notice of deficiency that follows an unresolved CP2000 is the CP3219A — all three are linked beneath this page. Only that last one starts the 90-day Tax Court clock under IRC §6213. A TC 922 on a transcript is not any of those three documents, and its posting date is not a deadline.

The practitioner’s actual next step

Pull the full process-code string, not just the presence of the code, and read the last position — everything above turns on it.

If there is no process code, stop worrying about AUR: the IRM says there is no case.

If the last code shows the case closed to Exam, Campus Fraud, Criminal Investigation, or Appeals, treat that as the live matter and work it under those procedures rather than as an underreporter case.

Check whether a separate assessment has posted before quoting a balance, since the TC 922 carries none of its own — the Account Transcript Analyzer reads the whole module at once for exactly this.

Confirm what the string actually says against the module itself with the IRS Transcript Decoder rather than from a client’s description of their mail.