LT11 or Letter 1058: what it means and what to do
This is the Final Notice of Intent to Levy and Notice of Your Right to a Hearing. You have 30 days from the date on the notice to request a Collection Due Process hearing using Form 12153. Requesting one generally stops the IRS from levying while it is pending. If you take one thing from this page, take the date and the form.
Every other notice in the collection sequence is a reminder. This one is a deadline, and it is the only one that gives you a right you can permanently lose.
What is an LT11 or Letter 1058?
Three notices carry the same meaning and you may receive any of them: LT11, Letter 1058, or CP90. Which one arrives depends on which part of the IRS is handling your file. Letter 1058 usually means a Revenue Officer has been assigned, which means a person rather than a computer is now working on it.
It normally arrives by certified mail. That is deliberate, because the law requires the IRS to give you proper notice before levying, and certified delivery is how they establish it.
By this stage you will usually have had several earlier letters. CP14, reminders, then CP504. If you never saw those, it is often because the IRS has an old address for you.
Why is this notice different from the others?
Because after it, the IRS can actually take things.
Once 30 days pass with no hearing request, they may levy your wages, your bank accounts, money owed to you by clients, and a portion of Social Security benefits. A wage levy is continuous, meaning it attaches to every paycheque until the debt is resolved rather than taking one lump. The amount left exempt is set by a statutory table and it is considerably less than most people expect to live on.
That is the difference. A CP504 warns. This one authorises.
What does requesting a hearing actually do?
Rather a lot, and it is far less confrontational than it sounds. A Collection Due Process hearing is an administrative right, not a lawsuit, and requesting one is routine.
It generally stops levy action while the request is pending. That alone is usually worth filing it, because it converts an imminent problem into a scheduled conversation.
It moves your file to the Independent Office of Appeals, which is a different part of the IRS from the one chasing you, and in practice a more reasonable one to deal with.
It preserves your right to go to Tax Court. If Appeals reaches a determination you disagree with, you can petition the Tax Court. This is the only route to judicial review in a collection matter, and it exists only if the hearing was requested within the 30 days.
The request is made on Form 12153, and it must be sent to the address shown on your notice rather than to a general IRS address. Keep proof of posting. Certified mail with a return receipt is the sensible way to do it.
What can I raise at the hearing?
More than people expect. The hearing is not limited to arguing about whether the levy is fair.
- Collection alternatives. An instalment agreement you can afford, currently not collectible status, or an offer in compromise. This is what most hearings are actually about.
- Whether the amount is even correct, but only if you never had a previous opportunity to dispute it. If the balance came from a return the IRS filed on your behalf, that condition is often satisfied.
- Innocent spouse relief, where the liability belongs to a spouse or former spouse.
- Lien issues, including withdrawal, discharge from a specific property, or subordination so a refinance can complete.
- Whether procedures were followed, including whether notices were properly issued.
What you cannot usually do is relitigate a tax you already had a chance to contest and did not.
What if I have already missed the 30 days?
Not the end of it, but you have lost something real.
You can request what is called an equivalent hearing, generally within one year of the notice. Appeals will consider the same issues and you can still negotiate a collection alternative.
What you give up is the automatic suspension of levy action and the right to take the outcome to Tax Court. Those are meaningful protections, which is exactly why the 30 day window matters so much.
If the deadline has passed, request the equivalent hearing anyway, and separately get a collection alternative in front of them quickly. An instalment agreement in place generally stops enforcement regardless of which hearing you are in.
What if they have already levied?
Act today rather than tomorrow, because the timing here is genuinely tight.
A bank levy has a 21 day hold. When a bank receives a levy it freezes the funds but does not send them to the IRS for 21 days. That window exists precisely so problems can be sorted out, and money can be released within it. Once it passes, recovering the funds is far harder.
A wage levy continues until it is released or the debt is resolved. It does not take one paycheque and stop.
Levies can be released, most commonly by establishing that it is creating an economic hardship or by getting a collection alternative agreed. If a levy has landed on your wages or your account, that is the point at which professional help stops being optional.
Do I actually need help with this?
On most of these pages my honest answer is “probably not.” Here it changes.
You can still handle it yourself if you can pay the balance in full, or if all your returns are filed and you qualify to set up an instalment agreement online. Doing either generally stops the process. That remains true at this stage and I would rather you did it than paid me.
It is worth having someone when you cannot pay and need an alternative negotiated, when returns are unfiled, when a Revenue Officer is involved, when the balance is wrong or came from a return the IRS filed for you, when a levy has already landed, when a business or payroll taxes are in the picture, or when the 30 days is close and you are not certain what to file.
The reason this one is different is the deadline. Every other notice in the sequence can be picked up later at some cost in money. This one has a window that closes, and what closes with it is your right to a hearing that suspends collection and your route to Tax Court. Those do not come back.
If you do nothing else, put the notice date in your calendar, count 30 days, and make sure a Form 12153 is posted before then. You can work out the rest afterwards.
If the 30 days is running, say so
Put the notice date at the top of your message and I will move it up the queue. This is the one deadline on the whole site where a few days genuinely matter.
Tell me the date, the tax year, and roughly the size of the balance. I will tell you what needs filing before the window closes and what your realistic options are afterwards.
Where it needs proper work, I file an authorisation, pull your full transcripts, and send you a written memo on what is assessed, what is unfiled, where you sit in the process, and what each option costs. That phase is $999 and it stands on its own.
Please do not attach the notice or include your Social Security number in a first message. A date and a sentence is enough, and we move to a secure portal once we are talking.
Other notices: CP14 · CP504 · CP2000 · all IRS notices and audits
Michael Jones, EA & CFP®. Enrolled Agent, licensed by the U.S. Department of the Treasury to represent taxpayers before the IRS in all fifty states. This page is general information about how these notices work, not advice about your particular notice. Procedures and timeframes change, so check the notice itself for the dates that apply to you and confirm the current version of any form before filing it.