The Internal Revenue Service is conducting a test run this fall of its automated soft notice program, sending about 31,000 notices in the mail to taxpayers who may have underreported their income on past returns, according to an IRS statement sent to BNA Oct. 8.

The notice, CP 2057, asks the taxpayer to either file an amended return or consult with the document issuer to fix incorrect documents, IRS said.

"If the test results indicate limited underreporting in the subsequent year and self correction of unreported income, we hope to expand the use of this notice," the service said in the statement.

The service said issuing the soft notice will allow taxpayers to correct these issues without having to interact greatly with IRS officials, which is beneficial to both parties.

IRS said it will still issue Form CP 2000 notices, even if the CP 2057 initiative is expanded. Form CP 2000 notices are sent to taxpayers to inform them of IRS-proposed changes to their tax returns because the information they reported does not match what other sources reported (216 DTR G-9, 11/8/07).

If a taxpayer does not respond to a CP 2000 notice by the due date listed, IRS will assume its proposed changes are correct and will continue to process them to an assessment, according to the IRS Web site.