CP75 is the Exam Initial Contact Notice: the IRS has selected your return for audit and needs documentation supporting specific items on it — most commonly the Earned Income Credit. It is not a bill and it does not yet change your tax. What it does do, immediately, is freeze the credit portions of your refund until the audit is resolved. CP75 cases are won and lost on documents: the right proof, for the right child or the right income figure, inside 30 days.
General information, not tax or legal advice. Credit audits turn on exact eligibility rules; if your claim involves a disputed qualifying child or a prior EIC disallowance, a tax professional or Low Income Taxpayer Clinic is worth consulting.
| Notice | What it audits |
|---|---|
| CP75 | The items listed on the notice — most commonly the Earned Income Credit |
| CP75A | The EIC plus your dependents and your filing status (head of household) |
| CP75D | Your income and withholding |
Read your notice’s variant line first — it decides what you have to prove. A CP75A response that proves the EIC but says nothing about the head-of-household question answers only half the audit.
While the audit runs, the IRS holds the portions of your refund attributable to the Earned Income Credit, the Additional Child Tax Credit, the Recovery Rebate Credit and the Premium Tax Credit. The rest of the refund — ordinary overpaid withholding beyond those credits — is not the frozen part. If the information you send supports your return, the IRS sends the held refund and a letter closing the audit. If the credits are disallowed, the adjustment shows up as a reduced refund or a balance due.
The notice encloses the substantiation forms that match your issues — typically Form 886-H-EIC (Earned Income Credit), 886-H-HOH (head of household), 886-H-DEP (dependents), or an Information Document Request (Form 4564). For EIC qualifying-child claims, the proof the 886-H asks for falls into three buckets:
For a CP75D (income and withholding), the proof is income-side: pay records, employer letters, and bank records that corroborate the wages and withholding on the return. The full per-issue proof standards are in the record-keeping checklist.
Ignore the notice and the claimed credits are disallowed: your refund is reduced, or a balance is assessed, and the case proceeds down the standard mail-audit runway toward a Statutory Notice of Deficiency. One further consequence deserves plain statement: if an EIC claim is disallowed because the IRS finds the claim was made with reckless or intentional disregard of the rules, §32(k) bars you from claiming the EIC for 2 years — and 10 years where the claim was fraudulent. That ban attaches to the underlying claim, not to the CP75 notice itself — but it is the reason a credits audit is worth answering carefully rather than casually. If the credits were already disallowed and assessed before you gathered your proof, the reopening route is audit reconsideration.
The full audit map, from first letter to Tax Court: IRS audit help.
What do I need to send? The documentation listed on your notice and its enclosed forms — for an EIC audit, proof of the qualifying child’s relationship to you, residency with you for more than half the year, and age/status, per Form 886-H-EIC (the IRS’s CP75 page poses exactly this question). Complete the enclosed Response form and send it with copies of the documents within 30 days, by the upload tool, fax or mail.
Why is my refund being held because of CP75? Because the notice opens an audit of the credits themselves. While it runs, the IRS holds the refund portions attributable to the EIC, Additional Child Tax Credit, Recovery Rebate Credit and Premium Tax Credit (H&R Block’s CP75 explainer describes the same freeze). If your documents support the return, the held refund is released with a letter closing the audit.
What happens if I don’t respond to CP75? The claimed credits are disallowed. You receive a reduced refund or a balance due instead, and the case continues through the mail-audit sequence toward a Statutory Notice of Deficiency. A disallowance based on reckless or intentional disregard can also trigger the §32(k) ban — 2 years, or 10 for fraud — before the EIC can be claimed again.
What is the difference between CP75 and CP75A? CP75 is the standard exam initial contact notice, most often about the Earned Income Credit. CP75A widens the audit to the EIC plus your dependents and filing status (head of household); CP75D instead audits income and withholding (the variant split is how the notice-family guides, such as WizTax’s, organize the three).
Sources: IRS.gov — “Understanding your CP75 notice,” Topic 654, sample Notice CP75; IRC §32(k); Taxpayer Advocate Service notices library. Currency verified 2026-10-23.