Three envelopes arrived together and you do not know which one to answer first. One week can bring a payday notice, a state report, and a question about who you are. Sharing a table does not merge three agencies into one reply.
Sort the mixed pileWrite three labels on a pad if you have to. Payday. State. Identity. Or whatever the pages actually are. Answer the one with a date first, and do not borrow a paragraph from a different agency to do it. A response that explains a state report to the Service wastes the date on both. The pad is the sort. The reply comes after.
We will do the labeling with you. Bring every first page. You do not have to understand them first. You do have to avoid stapling them into one reply.
Payday mail cites an employment form or a deposit. State mail cites a business report, an information report, or a tax notice, and the date printed by that state is the date we listen for. Identity mail asks who you are and should not send you into a link. A Form 1120-S notice cites that return. Acceptance, if it is in the stack at all, is the reply to the election, not a bill.
Company-level tax is rarely in this mix, and when a page mentions it we keep the question narrow. A loss that was disallowed is often a basis question and belongs with the basis records, not with the state report. Keep that loss with the basis file.
Spring is when a mixed pile tends to land, because several due dates crowd the same weeks. A mixed pile in those months is its own weather. A state report can come due in the middle of it. Sort the pile before you answer the loudest page. The kitchen table after the shop closes is a calmer place to sort than a rushed reply written from the top envelope.
October has a different job, the plan and the close. Do not wait for October to separate April's mail. The dates on the notices are the dates. The plan does not move them.
Each labeled notice goes to its own page on this address, and then to its own response. The close still has to support the answer. An open month is a weak attachment. If the month the notice asks about is open, we say that before we draft anything.
If you already sent one combined reply, bring a copy of what you sent. We will not scold it. We will say what the next paper should do differently.
List the form numbers you can see, or describe each page in a few words if the number is hard to find.