LT11 and Letter 1058: The Final Notice Before Levy and Your 30 Days

Thirty days. That is the entire window an LT11 or Letter 1058 gives you before the IRS can legally reach into your bank account, garnish your wages, or seize a receivable. The clock starts on the date of the letter, not the day you open it, and the single most expensive mistake I see is treating this notice like the four or five that came before it.

It is not the same. This one carries a statutory deadline and a right you lose if you sleep on it.

What is an LT11 or Letter 1058?

An LT11 (issued by IRS Automated Collection Systems) and a Letter 1058 (issued by a Revenue Officer) are the Final Notice of Intent to Levy and Notice of Your Right to a Hearing required under §6330. They are functionally the same document from two different parts of the IRS. Both tell you the IRS intends to levy to collect an unpaid balance and that you have the right to a Collection Due Process (CDP) hearing before it does.

The IRS cannot levy most property without first sending this notice and waiting out the response period, per §6330(a). Earlier letters in the series — the CP14 balance-due notice, the CP501/CP503/CP504 reminders — are demands and warnings. The CP504 even uses levy language and can support a levy on a state tax refund, but it is not the final notice that unlocks a wage or bank levy. The LT11 and Letter 1058 are.

If you have received one, you are near the end of the administrative collection sequence, not the middle of it.

How long do you have after an LT11?

You have 30 days from the date of the notice to request a Collection Due Process hearing, under §6330(a)(3)(B). The IRS is barred from levying during that 30-day window and, if you file a timely CDP request, generally throughout the hearing and any Tax Court appeal that follows.

A few specifics that matter:

• The 30 days runs from the date printed on the letter, not the postmark you notice or the day it lands in your mailbox. Build in mail time.
• File Form 12153, Request for a Collection Due Process or Equivalent Hearing, to preserve the right. Keep proof of timely mailing — certified mail is worth the few dollars.
• Miss the 30 days and you can still request an Equivalent Hearing within one year, but you lose the levy hold and the right to petition Tax Court if you disagree with the outcome. That distinction is the whole ballgame.

What can the IRS levy, and what is protected?

Once the 30-day period lapses without a timely CDP request, the IRS can levy wages, bank accounts, accounts receivable, and other property to satisfy the liability. Some categories are exempt or limited.

Reachable by levy	Exempt or limited
Bank account balances (subject to a 21-day hold)	Unemployment and certain public assistance benefits (§6334(a)(4), (11))
Wages and salary (continuous levy)	A statutory exempt amount of wages tied to your standard deduction and dependents (§6334(d))
Accounts receivable, commissions	Certain personal effects and tools of a trade up to a cap (§6334(a)(2), (3))
Federal payments, some retirement accounts	Certain workers' compensation and court-ordered child support (§6334(a)(7), (8))

Two operational points from the field. A bank levy is not instantaneous forever — under §6332(c), the bank must hold the levied funds for 21 days before remitting them to the IRS. That 21-day hold is your last practical chance to resolve or reverse the levy before the money leaves. A wage levy, by contrast, is continuous under §6331(e): it stays attached to each paycheck until the debt is paid, the levy is released, or the collection statute expires. Clients consistently underestimate how much of a paycheck a wage levy takes — the exempt portion is often far smaller than they assume.

What should you do in the 30 days?

Decide, fast, which of a short list of outcomes you are pursuing, then act before the deadline. In practice the choices are:

1. Pay or arrange to pay. If you can full-pay, do it and the levy threat evaporates. If you cannot, an installment agreement or partial-pay installment agreement stops levy action while it is pending and in force.
2. File Form 12153 for a CDP hearing. This preserves the levy hold and your Tax Court rights and gives you a forum to propose a collection alternative or challenge the liability if you never had a prior opportunity to.
3. Submit an Offer in Compromise on Form 656 if you genuinely cannot pay the full amount within the collection window. A pending, processable OIC generally suspends levy action under §6331(k).
4. Request Currently Not Collectible status if paying anything would leave you unable to meet basic living expenses. The IRS uses its Collection Financial Standards to test this.
5. Fix the underlying return. More than once I have seen an LT11 traceable to an unfiled year the IRS filled in with a Substitute for Return under §6020(b) — which allows no deductions, no dependents, and no favorable filing status. Filing the actual return can collapse the balance that triggered the notice.

If you are going to be represented, file Form 2848, Power of Attorney and Declaration of Representative, so your Enrolled Agent, CPA, or attorney can talk to Collections directly. The most common miss I see is a taxpayer who calls in a panic, agrees to a payment they cannot sustain, defaults it 60 days later, and hands the IRS grounds to levy anyway.

What happens if you miss the 30 days?

If you let the 30 days pass, the IRS can levy without further notice, and you lose the pre-levy Tax Court door — but you are not out of options. You can still:

• Request an Equivalent Hearing within one year of the CDP notice date. You get an Appeals conference, but no automatic levy hold and no Tax Court review.
• Ask for a levy release under §6343 if the levy is causing economic hardship, was issued in error, or you have since entered an installment agreement. The IRS must release a levy that creates an economic hardship.
• Get the funds back during the 21-day bank hold by resolving the account before the bank remits.

None of these is as strong as a timely Form 12153. The lesson clients learn the hard way: the deadline is the leverage. Once it passes, you are negotiating from a weaker position.

Does the notice mean the debt is correct?

No. A Final Notice reflects the IRS's records, and those records are frequently built on incomplete information — a missing return, an unmatched payment, an amended return that never posted, identity theft, or an SFR that ignored your deductions. Receiving an LT11 does not concede that the number is right.

If you never had a chance to dispute the liability — for instance, you did not receive a Statutory Notice of Deficiency for the year — you can raise the amount of the liability itself at the CDP hearing under §6330(c)(2)(B). That is another reason to file Form 12153 rather than default straight into a payment plan on a number you have not verified.

Tax collection outcomes depend on your specific facts, your state, and the collection statute expiration date on each period. Verify the figures on your notice against your own records, and if the amount or the levy crosses into a dispute you cannot resolve administratively, consult your tax advisor or attorney before the 30 days run.

Sources

• IRC §6330 — Notice and opportunity for hearing before levy
• IRC §6331 — Levy and distraint (including §6331(e) continuous wage levy, §6331(k) suspension during pending OIC/installment agreement)
• IRC §6332(c) — 21-day holding period for levied bank funds
• IRC §6334 — Property exempt from levy (including §6334(d) exempt wage amount)
• IRC §6343 — Authority to release levy, including for economic hardship
• IRC §6020(b) — Substitute for Return authority
• IRS Form 12153 — Request for a Collection Due Process or Equivalent Hearing
• IRS Form 656 — Offer in Compromise
• IRS Form 2848 — Power of Attorney and Declaration of Representative
• IRS notices referenced: LT11, Letter 1058, CP14, CP501, CP503, CP504