What the IRS says: “The IRS allowed part of your refund claim and disallowed the rest, with appeal rights on the disallowed portion.” Here’s what it actually means, your deadline, and exactly how to respond.
The split decision: some of the claim paid, the remainder rejected. Same appeal architecture as the 105C (Appeals window + 2-year suit clock) applied to the disallowed slice. Verify the allowed portion actually arrives — partial payments have a way of getting lost in offsets.
Notice family: Refund Holds & Unfiled Returns — Your refund is frozen or the IRS has no return on file for a year it expected one. These resolve by filing, verifying, or sending exactly the documents requested — silence makes them worse.
30 days — for IRS Appeals on the disallowed portion; 2-year suit clock running.
Counted in calendar days from the notice date. The exact respond-by date printed on your notice always controls — check page 1.
Reconcile which items were allowed vs disallowed
Track the allowed refund to your bank/offset ledger
Protest the disallowed part with targeted documentation
Same 2-year suit backstop on the disallowed portion
The protest letter narrows to the rejected items only — clean cases resolve at Appeals without ever testing the court deadline.
Describe the notice and your side of it — use placeholders, never your SSN or account numbers (the letter keeps [YOUR NAME]-style fields so you fill in the real details privately before mailing). A mail-ready draft with an enclosure checklist comes back in ~20 seconds.
Your IRS response letter draft will appear here.
The IRS allowed part of your refund claim and disallowed the rest, with appeal rights on the disallowed portion. In practice: The split decision: some of the claim paid, the remainder rejected. Same appeal architecture as the 105C (Appeals window + 2-year suit clock) applied to the disallowed slice. Verify the allowed portion actually arrives — partial payments have a way of getting lost in offsets.
You generally have 30 days — for IRS Appeals on the disallowed portion; 2-year suit clock running. The respond-by date printed on your own notice always controls.
The protest letter narrows to the rejected items only — clean cases resolve at Appeals without ever testing the court deadline.