Letter 1153. Proposed trust fund recovery penalty.

On the paper

Read the business name, the quarters listed, the amount proposed against you personally, and the enclosed Form 2751.

Look at which quarters are listed and match them against the dates you actually held authority at the business. The penalty is quarter by quarter, and a person who signed checks for two of the six quarters on the letter has a different case for the other four. That mapping of authority to periods is the substance of most Letter 1153 disputes.

Find the date printed on your notice or letter. The paper notice and the current official IRS instructions control, even where this page differs.

Where this notice comes from

26 U.S.C. section 6672 reaches a person required to collect, account for, and pay over tax who willfully fails to do so. Two elements do the work: responsibility, and willfulness.

Responsibility turns on authority in fact rather than on title. Signature authority, control over which creditors were paid, and the power to direct payroll count more than an entry on an organizational chart.

Willfulness in this setting generally means paying other creditors while knowing the trust fund taxes were unpaid. It does not require an intent to defraud.

The IRS can assess this penalty against more than one person for the same quarters, and it collects the trust fund amount once across all of them.

General next steps

1. Write down, quarter by quarter, who had authority over payroll and over which creditors were paid.
2. Gather bank signature cards, corporate records, payroll authorizations, and anything showing when your authority began and ended.
3. If you disagree, prepare the appeal the letter describes and send it within the period stated, keeping proof of the date.

Timing

The IRS trust fund recovery penalty page, checked September 10, 2026, quotes the letter as giving 60 days, or 75 days if the letter is addressed to you outside the United States, from the date of the letter to appeal the proposal. The date printed on the notice controls; do not calculate a deadline from this page.

What Letter 1153 does not mean

The penalty is not a transfer of the company's tax debt to you, and the word penalty does not imply misconduct. It is a collection device for the withheld income and employment taxes that were held in trust for the government. It also does not mean the IRS has decided you are responsible. Letter 1153 states a proposal, and the appeal window exists because responsibility and willfulness are contested questions of fact.

What this page cannot tell you

This page cannot determine whether you were a responsible person for any quarter or whether the IRS can sustain the penalty against you.

IRS Appeals

This letter may offer a protest to the IRS Independent Office of Appeals. Read IRS Appeals.

Governing statute

26 U.S.C. section 6672 imposes a penalty equal to the total amount of the tax not collected or not accounted for and paid over on any person required to perform that duty who willfully fails to do so. The section was checked on uscode.house.gov on September 10, 2026. That is the authority, not advice about this letter.

Official sources

• Employment taxes and the trust fund recovery penalty
• Requesting an IRS appeal
• 26 U.S.C. section 6672, failure to collect and pay over tax

If anything on this page differs from your notice or from current IRS instructions, follow the notice and the IRS.

Common questions

• Can more than one person be assessed for the same quarters?

  Yes. The IRS can propose and assess the penalty against every person it finds responsible and willful for a quarter, and it collects the trust fund amount once in total across them.

• Does it matter that I was not an officer?

  Title is not the test. Responsibility turns on authority in fact, including signature authority and control over which creditors were paid.

• What does willful mean here?

  In this setting it generally means paying other creditors while knowing the withheld taxes were unpaid. It does not require an intent to defraud.

• What happens if I do not appeal?

  The IRS assesses the proposed penalty against you personally and collects it as a tax liability, using the ordinary collection notices and remedies.