IRS Notice · Letter 692 · Additional Findings · Read the Suffix

Letter 692: what it means depends on which audit you are in

A Letter 692 arrives after you send the examiner something during an audit. What it signals depends on the suffix — and on whether your audit was in person or by mail, because the IRS's own manuals use this letter for different purposes.

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A Letter 692 — Request for Consideration of Additional Findings — arrives when an examiner has looked again at your case after receiving something from you. What it signals depends on which kind of audit you are in, because the IRS runs two of them under two different sections of its manual, and they use this letter for different purposes.

You sent something in, and this came back. The first question is which examination you are in, because the answer changes what the letter means.

If your audit was conducted in person, the manual governing it uses this letter in two situations, and both are situations where the proposed tax did not go up.

If your audit was conducted by mail, the manual governing that one uses a Letter 692-M or 692-T to give you “a response/determination on submitted documents” — which can mean the documents were not enough, and a 90-day letter can follow it.

The suffix on your letter is what tells you which.

The suffix is the first thing to establish, and it is on your letter. (800) 236-3741 is answered 24 hours a day, seven days a week; after hours our AI receptionist answers the common questions, takes the letter number and suffix, and books the first available thirty minutes. Thirty minutes, free, no obligation and no conditions — and a CPA works the case, not a salesperson. Book thirty minutes →

Start with two things you can do in five minutes. Read the suffix after the 692 — a bare 692, or -A, -B, -K, -M or -T — and put the revised report beside the original one. Those two together tell you more than the covering letter does.

Key takeaways

•A Letter 692 is a Request for Consideration of Additional Findings — the IRS coming back to you after considering something you sent during an examination.
•There are at least six variants and the suffix matters. 692, 692-A, 692-B and 692-K belong to office and field examinations. 692-M and 692-T belong to correspondence examinations — audits conducted by mail.
•In an office or field examination, the manual uses Letter 692 in two situations, and in both of them the proposed tax did not increase.
•In a correspondence examination, a Letter 692-M is described by the manual as the “15-day letter with report”, and a Statutory Notice of Deficiency may be mailed no earlier than the 31st day following one.
•Any 15-day period is an instruction to an IRS employee, not a statutory deadline — the date on your letter is yours.

What a Letter 692 is — and the split that decides what it means

It is the letter an examiner sends after considering something you submitted. Beyond that, the two examination programs use it differently, and the difference matters more than anything else on this page.

If your audit was conducted in person — office or field examination

The governing instruction is in IRM 4.10.8, in the table covering what happens when additional information arrives after a 30-day letter:

“The taxpayer provides additional information that does not change the examination report, or / The corrected report reduces the previous report and no new issues are raised → Solicit an agreement. The following letters may be used, as applicable: Letter 692, Request for Consideration of Additional Findings, or Letter 692-A, Request for Consideration of Additional Findings (Claim), or Letter 692-B, Request for Consideration of Additional Findings (No-Change with Adjustments). Letter 692-K, Request for Consideration of Additional Findings (Bankruptcy). Allow the taxpayer 15 days to respond. A new 30-day letter is not needed.” — IRM 4.10.8.12.9.1 (04-10-2023), Additional Information Received

And the row beneath it, which is what gives the letter its meaning:

“The corrected report raises new issue(s), or / The proposed deficiency is increased → A new 30-day letter must be issued if sufficient time remains on the statute of limitations. If sufficient time does not remain on the statute of limitations, follow the instructions in IRM 4.10.8.12.1(4), 30-Day Letters.”

Read the two rows together and the letter starts to say something — in this program. The examiner had two paths. The one that produces a Letter 692 here is the one where the number did not increase and no new issue was raised. A revised report that went the other way calls for a new 30-day letter instead, and only where enough time remains on the assessment statute; where it does not, the manual sends the examiner down the Letter 5153 route instead.

If your audit was conducted by mail — correspondence examination

A different section of the manual governs, and it does not support the same reading. IRM 4.19.13:

“The Letter 692-M, Request for Consideration of Additional Findings (Manual Letter), providing the taxpayer with a response/determination on submitted documents, may be mailed prior to the suspense period end date of an ICL or a 30-day letter. A manually prepared Statutory Notice of Deficiency may be mailed no earlier than the 31st day following a Letter 692-M.” “Taxpayer requests correction with no remittance → Issue Letter 692-M or Letter 692-T, Request for Information on Additional Findings, and revised report, if necessary.” — IRM 4.19.13, correspondence examination

The same section's suspense table lists the Letter 692-M plainly as the “15-day letter with report.”

So in a mail audit this letter is a determination on what you sent, and it can be a step on the way to a 90-day letter rather than a sign that the number held. A page that told you otherwise would be comforting and wrong.

There is no IRS “Understanding your Letter 692” page — we checked, alongside Letters 525, 531, 566, 915 and 3219, against seven notices that do have pages. This page is built from both manual sections and from the IRS's Appeals and audit-reconsideration guidance.

What the letter does and does not tell you

Start with the suffix, because it decides the rest. A bare 692, or 692-A, 692-B or 692-K, belongs to the office and field examination program. A 692-M or 692-T belongs to the correspondence program.

Suffix	Program	What it means
692	Office / field examination	Additional information did not change the report.
692-A	Office / field examination	Request for Consideration of Additional Findings (Claim).
692-B	Office / field examination	No-change with adjustments (affecting other years).
692-K	Office / field examination	Bankruptcy in the picture.
692-M	Correspondence examination	The “15-day letter with report” — a determination on your submitted documents. A Statutory Notice of Deficiency may follow from the 31st day.
692-T	Correspondence examination	Request for Information on Additional Findings — the secure-messaging version.

On an office or field examination, the first of the two situations is “additional information that does not change the examination report” — the examiner read what you sent and kept the number. The dispute is narrower, because you know your evidence was considered, but the proposal is where it was. The second is “the corrected report reduces the previous report and no new issues are raised”, which is a genuine improvement whose size is on the enclosed report rather than in the letter. What those two have in common is that the number did not go up.

On a correspondence examination, that inference does not hold, and the enclosed report is the only thing that tells you where you stand.

A check you can run yourself. IRM 4.10.8 records that a Letter 692 “is signed by the examiner”, while 30-day letters “must be signed by the group manager.” If the signature block is the examiner's, you are not looking at a new 30-day letter.

If the suffix on your letter is an -M or a -T, a notice of deficiency can follow it from the 31st day. That is worth thirty minutes now rather than after. (800) 236-3741 · Book thirty minutes →

Your clock

The date on your letter, and it is likely to be shorter than the last one.

IRM 4.10.8 instructs the examiner to “Allow the taxpayer 15 days to respond.” IRM 4.19.13 lists the correspondence version as the “15-day letter with report.” Both are internal instructions about how long to leave a case before moving it on. Neither is a period the law gives you and neither is a right. They are stated here because they explain what you are likely to see printed, not so that anyone works to them.

And on a mail audit there is a second number worth knowing, because it is the one with teeth. IRM 4.19.13 provides that a Statutory Notice of Deficiency “may be mailed no earlier than the 31st day following a Letter 692-M.” That is not your deadline either — it is the earliest the IRS may move — but it tells you how short the runway is.

The sentence beside it is the one with consequences. “A new 30-day letter is not needed.”

What that does establish, for an office or field examination: nothing about a Letter 692 opens a fresh Appeals window. IRM 4.10.8 is explicit that the examiner does not issue a new 30-day letter in that situation.

What it does not establish, and this page will not claim otherwise: whether your Appeals window is still open. That depends on the date of the earlier letter that offered Appeals and on what has happened since. It is a fact about your dates, and this page cannot see them.

What is worth doing about that. If a 30-day letter was issued earlier and you have not requested an Appeals conference, the general rule is that the request goes in within 30 days of the date of that letter — “Generally, the time limit is 30 days from the date of the letter” — and it goes to the IRS office named in the letter, not to Appeals. If those 30 days are still running, this revised report has not changed that and the clock has not restarted.

Sources: IRM 4.10.8.12.9.1 and 4.10.8.12.1 (04-10-2023); IRS, “Preparing a request for appeals.” Read 6 September 2026.

Can they take my wages or my bank account over this?

Not while this is still a proposal. Section 6213(a) bars assessment of the proposed deficiency, and any levy or collection suit for it, until a Notice of Deficiency has been mailed and its 90 days — 150 if it is addressed to you outside the United States — have run, and until any Tax Court case is finished.

This page is about a letter asking you to agree, so the limit matters more here than usual. Under 6213(d) you may waive those restrictions in writing, and signing the revised report is that waiver. Where the revised number is right, signing is the sensible end of the matter — and it is also the point at which the protection stops and the balance becomes collectible.

The statute's other exceptions are at sections 6851, 6852 and 6861, and a math or clerical error assessment is outside the bar under 6213(b)(1). A balance already assessed for another year is unaffected either way.

What triggered it

You, or your representative, sent the examiner something after a report had already been proposed. The manual's own heading for the section is “Additional Information Received.”

That could be documents, an explanation, an amended computation, or a claim. Where the material is a claim, the letter may arrive as a 692-A. Where the outcome is a no-change with adjustments affecting other years, a 692-B. Where there is a bankruptcy in the picture, a 692-K.

What happens if you do nothing

The examiner treats the case as unagreed and closes it forward. A Letter 692 solicits an agreement; declining to give one is a legitimate answer and it is not the same as ignoring the letter, but only one of those two gets your position recorded.

Where a case closes unagreed, the route runs to a Notice of Deficiency — a Letter 531 after an in-person audit, a Letter 3219 after one by mail — carrying 90 days to petition the United States Tax Court. On a mail audit that notice can follow a Letter 692-M from the 31st day. What that notice is and what the 90 days is for →

And the reason to answer even where you agree. Signing a revised report that reduces the proposed tax closes the matter at the lower number. Doing nothing does not preserve the lower number; it leaves the case to be closed by someone else.

What to do in the next two weeks

1. Today: compare the revised report against the original, line by line. Not the totals — the lines. The manual's two situations look identical from the front page and completely different on the schedule of adjustments. The question you are answering is: did anything move, and which item?

2. Check that what you sent is reflected in the reasoning. If an item you substantiated is still disallowed, the explanation should say why. If it does not, that is a question worth asking before you sign anything.

3. Work out what is still in dispute, and whether it is worth continuing. A revised report often leaves one or two items standing out of a longer list. The decision is different when the argument has narrowed.

4. Establish whether an Appeals window is still open, from the earlier letter's date. This letter did not open one and did not restart one.

5. Answer by the date, either way. Agreement or disagreement both count as responses. Silence is the only one that does not.

The genuinely difficult part is step 1 — reading a revised Form 4549 against the original and identifying which adjustments changed and which explanations were rewritten. Two versions of a report look alike and the differences are the whole message. It is also the part most easily done by someone who reads these documents regularly, because the thing you are looking for is a change in an explanation rather than a change in a number.

The Audit Response & Records Checklist

What substantiation means item by item, what changes an examiner's mind, and how to read a report against the one before it. It is the order we work in when a revised report arrives with a short date on it. First name and email — it carries dated material and the list is how a correction reaches you.

[ Get the checklist → ]

Katherine M. Johnson, CPA, CTRS

Katherine M. Johnson is a licensed CPA with over 30 years of experience and a Certified Tax Resolution Specialist (CTRS). She personally handles every case — representing individuals and businesses before the IRS and state revenue departments nationwide.

Read full bio

If the examination has already closed

Sometimes a Letter 692 arrives after a taxpayer has stopped engaging, and by the time it is opened the case has moved on and a tax has been assessed. That is not the end of the argument, and the route back has a condition that runs against instinct.

Audit reconsideration lets you ask the IRS to reevaluate an assessment — where credits were disallowed, where you disagree with the findings, or where the IRS made a processing or computational error. What it needs is new information: “New information is key. The IRS focuses on information they haven't previously considered.”

And the condition:

“You can only request audit reconsideration if the assessed tax liability remains unpaid. If you've already paid the tax, you'll need to file an amended return (Form 1040X) to claim a refund.” — IRS, audit reconsideration guidance, read 6 September 2026

Paying the bill to make it stop is what closes the door. The refund route that remains has its own deadline, measured from dates specific to your account rather than from the notice — which is exactly the kind of thing worth checking before, not after.

The written route is a letter explaining each disputed issue, or Form 12661, Disputed Issue Verification, with copies of the supporting documents and the audit report. The IRS estimates 30 days to respond and says plainly that it “may take longer, potentially several months.” If the reconsideration is denied, an Appeals conference is available on that decision.

The Kentucky filing that follows an agreement

Whatever the federal number settles at, Kentucky has its own reporting duty. Under KRS 141.211(2) a Kentucky taxpayer files a federal adjustments report with the Department of Revenue and pays any additional Kentucky tax “no later than one hundred eighty (180) days after the final determination date.”

And on this page in particular, the trigger matters. Where the examination ends by signing an agreement with the IRS — which is precisely what a Letter 692 is soliciting — KRS 141.211(1)(i)1.b makes the final determination date “the date upon which the last party signed the agreement.” Signing the revised report sets that clock running — at the last signature on it, which is ordinarily the IRS's rather than yours.

Kentucky then has one year from the filing of a timely report to assess. Where the report is late, absent, or omits adjustments or understates the tax, it has six years — measured from the final determination date.

Source: KRS 141.211(1)(i), (2) and (10), read 6 September 2026.

Kentucky's own notice of tax due, and the clocks attached to it →

What we see

A Letter 692 never arrives at our office in Georgetown on its own. It comes in a folder with everything that preceded it, and the question attached is the same every time: is this better or worse than the last one? The answer is on the schedule of adjustments rather than in the covering letter, which is why we read the two reports against each other line by line before reading the letter at all — people have been reading the total. The second thing worth saying is about memory rather than tax: an examination that has run for months and been answered in stages leaves people genuinely unsure which documents went in and when, and that uncertainty is not carelessness, it is what a year of correspondence does to anyone. Rebuilding that sequence from the account rather than from recollection is usually where the work starts.

Katherine — You're welcome to swap in what a revised report usually turns out to mean when one lands on your desk.

Unlimited rights of representation before the IRS belong to CPAs, enrolled agents and attorneys. Katherine is a CPA, and holds the Certified Tax Resolution Specialist designation alongside it, with tax-resolution continuing education every year. On a file at this stage the license buys continuity: with a Power of Attorney the correspondence history sits in one place and the two versions of a report can be read against the account transcript rather than against memory.

Where this sits in the sequence

Notice	What it is
Letter 525	The 30-day letter this follows — the stage that offered an Appeals window.
Letter 692▶ You are here	A Request for Consideration of Additional Findings — the examiner's response to something you sent. Meaning depends on the suffix and the program.
Letter 3219 / Letter 531	If the case closes unagreed — the Notice of Deficiency, with 90 days to petition the Tax Court.

Before: Letter 525 — the 30-day letter this follows → Next, if the case closes unagreed: the Notice of Deficiency — Letter 3219 after a mail audit, Letter 531 after an in-person one → Pull the account first: How to get IRS transcripts without calling → All notices: The IRS notice index → What we do at this stage: Audits, appeals and disputes →

Frequently asked

Does a Letter 692 mean I won?

No, and it does not always mean the number held either. In an office or field examination, IRM 4.10.8 uses this letter in two situations — where the information did not change the report, and where the corrected report reduces it — so the proposed tax did not increase. In a correspondence examination, IRM 4.19.13 uses a Letter 692-M to give a determination on the documents you sent, and a notice of deficiency can follow it from the 31st day. The enclosed report is what tells you where you actually stand.

How long do I have?

The date on your letter. The manual instructs examiners to allow 15 days, which is why the window tends to be short, but that is an internal instruction rather than a right you can rely on.

Does this restart my 30 days for Appeals?

No. The manual says a new 30-day letter is not needed. Whether your original Appeals window is still open depends on the date of the earlier letter that offered it.

What are the different 692 suffixes?

692-A is for claims, 692-B for no-change cases with adjustments, and 692-K where bankruptcy is involved — all under the office and field examination manual, IRM 4.10.8. 692-M and 692-T are correspondence-examination letters under IRM 4.19.13, 692-T being the secure-messaging version. There are at least six, and which family yours belongs to is the first thing to establish.

What if I never replied and the tax has been assessed?

Audit reconsideration is the route where you have information the IRS has not considered — and it is available only while the tax remains unpaid.

If you'd rather not work it out alone

We represent individuals and small businesses in IRS examinations and disputes from our office in Georgetown, Kentucky.

Thirty minutes on a Letter 692 is spent on three questions. Which examination program you are in, because the suffix changes what the letter means. Which adjustments actually moved between the two reports, and which explanations were rewritten. And whether an Appeals window from the earlier letter is still open.

Where you do not need us: the revised report accepts your position, the remaining number is one you agree with, and the next step is a signature. That is a stamp. Everything above is drawn from the IRS's own manuals and describes what the letter means in general — whether the revised report is right about your file is a question about documents nobody outside it has seen.

Worth thirty minutes:

the revised report still disallows something you believe you substantiated;
your letter carries an -M or -T suffix, which puts a notice of deficiency within reach from the 31st day;
you cannot tell whether the Appeals window from the earlier letter has closed;
the date on the letter is inside a week.

The first consultation is free. It is thirty minutes. There is no obligation and no conditions attached to it.

And the thing worth knowing before you spend it: every case in this office is reviewed and worked by Katherine personally. Not handed to a processing department. Not managed by someone relaying messages from a licensed person you never meet. That is the difference between this and the firm advertising on the radio, and it is the one that shows up in month three rather than on the first call.

Bring both reports — the revised one and the one before it — because the difference between them is what the thirty minutes is spent on.

(800) 236-3741 — answered 24 hours a day, seven days a week. After hours you reach our AI receptionist rather than voicemail: it answers the common questions, takes the letter number and suffix, and books the first available thirty minutes. A short date is the reason to call tonight rather than tomorrow. Book a time →

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This article is general information, not tax advice for your situation. Every account is different, and the options described here are not available to everyone. Next Level Tax Resolution is not affiliated with the Internal Revenue Service or any government agency.

The NLTR Office ·

Reviewed by Katherine M. Johnson, CPA, CTRS