You're sorting through your postal mail and one very official envelope has a return address from the dreaded U.S. Internal Revenue Service. Immediately you have a sense of foreboding that overwhelms you. Suddenly, you feel like the 7th grader who just got called to the Vice-Principal's office for school discipline. You feel as though you're in trouble but you're not sure for what yet. So, with a sense of dread, you open the envelope.

THE 'HUMAN ERROR' FACTOR.

In reality, the most common letters from the IRS are not all that scary. Sometimes you may have forgotten to simply sign your tax return before submitting it. That happens quite a bit. In fact, over a million taxpayers received letters last year just to remind them that they forgot to to sign their tax returns.

Sometimes there's a very simple mathematical mistake on the return. In some cases, you might owe something, and if so the interest is reasonable - about four percent. For example, if there's a tax balance owed of say one thousand for a 30-day period that would only cost you $3.30 in interest. See what I mean?

On the other hand, the IRS sometimes makes mathematical mistake too. And it's possible it owes you money. In the late 90s, for example, the IRS mailed out somewhere close to 20,000 letters to taxpayers with an apology and a check.

LOOK IT OVER ONE MORE TIME.

Every year the IRS sends out millions of letters to taxpayers all over the country. Approximately half of all that mail that goes out to taxpayer mailboxes every year is simply because of the returns mailed in were simply 'incomplete' or they were 'incorrect'. You can keep your blood pressure down just by taking a few more minutes to go over the math one more time. Make sure that your return is 'accurate and complete'.

Millions of taxpayers assume that the printed return they get from their paid tax preparer is automatically correct. Yet that's not always the case. It's up to you to review and then sign the return as being accurate.

When the return is keyed into the IRS computer system, a simple typo error in the math could trigger a letter from the IRS. The way to handle that would be to use the printout of your own calculations and to send it in along with your letter of explanation. It's not unreasonable to consider the fact that millions of social security numbers, math calculations and addressed are keystroked every single year at the IRS, and it's perfectly conceivable that a mistake can be made on keying in the information, such as your social security number.

DOES IT MATCH UP?

Another common mistake is the 'mis-match' problem. Your bank or credit union might make a match-up error by keystroking the wrong social security number. This might also occur also if you own stock on which a dividend is declared. Don't let these simple errors get you atwitter with worry. That's part of why you want to keep the form 1099 that was mailed to you - so that if you need to, you can clear up the error accurately and in a timely manner.

DON'T IGNORE THE LETTER

If you hear from the IRS, the likelihood is high that you are not caught in the crosshairs of a criminal investigation or are about to be raided with your business and personal accounts frozen. More likely than not, there is a discrepancy or a mis-match or a math error on either your part or that of the IRS.

If you are audited, you should definitely seek audit representation by competent advisors. Many times, a professional in the audit representation can clear up the matter with one or two meetings, the exchange of supplemental explanatory information or by asserting additional information that was overlooked.

Whatever you do, don't ignore a letter from the IRS. That only serves to make matters worse. And if the matter is something that can easily be cleared up with supplemental correspondence from you with a printout of your calculations, you'd be foolish to ignore the incoming letter. Take heart, don't be frightened by the horror stories out there. If you can clear things up with correspondence and further documentation, by all means do so. Cooperation and a good-faith show of intended compliance can go a long way to minimizing your stress in getting mail from the Internal Revenue Service.