The number of “Amount Due” tax notices issued to corporate tax teams is rising sharply in 2025. Data across the Notice Ninja platform indicates a projected 30% year-over-year increase. We see it as a trend not just in volume but also in complexity.
Organizations using automation are staying ahead, but for tax operations teams still managing notices manually, the increase is creating substantial risk. While tax complexity isn’t new, the operational strain brought on by this shift requires renewed attention and strategic change.
“Amount Due” notices are no longer limited to a narrow interpretation. They now include a variety of agency-issued communications such as:
Though phrasing differs across jurisdictions, the underlying message is the same: an amount has been assessed, and the clock is ticking.
And it’s happening more often. Data from our platform shows that the highest volume of Amount Due notices occurred in March, June, and September. This is not just a seasonal spike. It’s a sustained trend and an important operational signal.
Multiple forces are contributing to the surge in 2025. Together, they are accelerating the notice lifecycle and exposing weaknesses particularly in under-resourced and outdated compliance functions and technologies.
Return mismatches, late filings, and payment misapplications remain common triggers for Amount Due notices. But tax authorities are issuing them more quickly now and sometimes automatically, based on electronic matching and internal risk flags.
In decentralized or manual systems, these notices require hours of follow-up to investigate and resolve. Incorrect EINs, payments tied to the wrong year, or misaligned entity structures all lead to avoidable assessments.
Agencies are applying more sophisticated detection logic to identify non-filers or incomplete returns. This is especially challenging for organizations with multiple entities or jurisdictions — particularly in private equity structures where the compliance burden is distributed across operating companies.
These notices often begin as reminders but escalate into assessments or enforced penalties if left unaddressed. When tracking and escalation protocols are inconsistent, resolution is delayed — and risk accumulates.
While increased oversight was a defining theme in 2024, 2025 has taken a more uncertain turn. The ongoing government shutdown and reductions in IRS staffing are leading to automation not just in assessment, but in outreach. Fewer notices are accompanied by explanation or context. Tax operations teams must now interpret, triage, and resolve without assuming follow-up.
This places even more pressure on internal visibility and process maturity. Without centralized intake and classification, organizations may miss critical deadlines or apply incomplete responses.
Corporate growth brings complexity of more entities, more states, more filings. But growth often outpaces process design. Tax teams already managing tight calendars are now asked to scale their notice response without scalable infrastructure.
According to the 2025 Corporate Tax Technology Report, published by the Thomson Reuters Institute and Tax Executives Institute, tax departments continue to cite manual processes and lack of workflow standardization as their top internal bottlenecks. The report also calls out underinvestment in notice management and audit readiness as persistent gaps, even in large enterprises.
As one contributor noted in the report:
“I feel that there’s no reason to be doing processes manually when there are alternatives to automating them. Human review and intervention will always be needed, but I believe that 90% of the upfront work can be accomplished more efficiently by making use of available technologies.”
As notice volumes increase, these gaps widen quickly.
The data tells a clear story: the increase in Amount Due notices is not random, they’re systemic. And how a tax team responds depends entirely on the systems they have in place.
For teams still managing notices through inboxes, folders, or spreadsheets, the increasing volume can feel like a never-ending loop of intake, review, and rework.
But for those who have automated intake, structured escalation, and centralized dashboards, the trend is a signal and not a disruption.
Here’s what leading teams are doing:
The increase in Amount Due notices is a wake-up call for tax leaders committed to better risk management and operational control. For those who have invested in automation, the experience is manageable and measurable. For others, it is a growing liability.
The opportunity now is to understand your notice landscape before it dictates your next audit, penalty, or policy change.
Book a strategic tax notice readiness session and we’ll help you assess where you stand and where to tighten your process. Or find CEO and Co-founder Amanda Reineke and COO and Co-founder Rick Pinkerman at the TEI Annual Conference October 26, 2025 through October 29th, 2025 in San Francisco.
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