Letter 4402C: Identity theft closing letter for a non-tax-related income claim

What Letter 4402C is

The manual closing letter the identity theft unit sends a taxpayer who reported that a W-2 or 1099 filed under their SSN is not theirs, when no assessment or refund issue exists. The account is marked TC 971 AC 504 with the field EMPL-M, and "Use of EMPL-M requires a manual Letter 4402C to be sent" (IRM 25.23.13.3(8), Aug. 20, 2026). It is also used when every disputed document is flagged INVALID on IRPTR (marker NKI-M), a case the manual calls "a loss of PII" rather than identity theft (IRM 25.23.13.3(11)). The manual does not reproduce the letter's text.

The deadline

No response required. Not a bill.

What to do

A payer never receives this letter and is not told it was sent; the manual has no procedure for contacting the employer or payer. If a payee shows you one, check the W-9 and payment records behind your return. If the return was wrong, file a W-2c (which is what stops the IRS's own Form 9409 to SSA, IRM 25.23.13.3.1(4), Jan. 31, 2023) or a corrected 1099; if it was right, say so in writing and keep the exchange with the return.

Employment-related identity theft and the income claim

A particular kind of identity theft shows up as income rather than as a refund: someone used the taxpayer's SSN to get a job or to be paid as a contractor, and the W-2 or 1099 the employer or payer filed landed on the taxpayer's IRS account. The taxpayer finds out when an underreporter notice lists wages or payments they never received, or when their own return is flagged for unreported income. The IRS treats this as its own category. When the taxpayer reports it and the IRS confirms that the disputed documents are not theirs and that no tax has been assessed on them, the account is marked and the case is closed with Letter 4402C. A related closing applies when every disputed document turns out to carry a TIN the IRS already had flagged as invalid; the IRS treats that as a loss of personal information rather than as identity theft, and uses the same letter.

The letter resolves the taxpayer's account. It does not reach back to the employer or payer, and it does not remove the information return from the IRS's files.

What a payer should do if a payee shows you one

Nothing in the IRS process tells the payer that a document it filed has been disowned, so a payer learns of it only from the payee. Treat the letter as a claim to be checked rather than an instruction. Pull the W-9 or onboarding record for the TIN on the return, the identity documents collected, and the payment records: who was paid, by what method, to what account. If the return was wrong (a keying error put a real worker's payments under a stranger's SSN), file the correction: a W-2c for wages, which is also what stops the IRS's own request to SSA to fix the earnings record, or a corrected 1099 with the right payee. If the return was right as far as your records show (you paid someone who presented that SSN), say so in writing, keep the payee's letter and your reply with the return, and consider whether the person you paid should be re-verified. The payee claims section of the identity theft guide covers the judgment call, and the corrections page covers the filing.

Questions about Letter 4402C

Have a different notice? The IRS notice decoder lists all 77 in the order they tend to arrive.