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How to Look Up COVID-Era Penalties and Interest on Your IRS Account Transcript

A recent federal court decision (Kwong v. United States) may entitle taxpayers to refunds of certain penalties and interest assessed during the COVID-19 disaster period. The window of affected returns is broad: anything due between January 20, 2020 and July 10, 2023. The deadline to act is July 10, 2026.

Before we can tell you whether you qualify, we need to know what penalties and interest you actually paid. The fastest way to find out is for you to pull your own IRS Account Transcript and check. It takes about five minutes per year, and it gives us (and you) a definitive answer straight from IRS records.

Here's how.

Step 1: Log In to Your IRS Account

Go to IRS.gov and click Sign In or Create Account. Choose Sign in with ID.me and complete your multi-factor authentication.

If you don't have an ID.me account yet, set one up first; the process takes about 15 minutes and the transcript download won't work without it.

Step 2: Navigate to Tax Records

From your IRS dashboard:

• Find the Records and Status section
• Click View Tax Records
• Select View Transcripts

Step 3: Pull a Transcript for Each Relevant Year

Under transcript type, select Account Transcript. Pull one for each tax year in the affected window:

• Tax year 2019 (return due in 2020)
• Tax year 2020 (return due in 2021)
• Tax year 2021 (return due in 2022)
• Tax year 2022 (return due in 2023, if your original due date fell on or before July 10)

Each transcript downloads as a PDF. Save them with clear filenames (e.g., "Account_Transcript_2020.pdf") so you can find them later.

What to Look For

The Account Transcript uses three-digit transaction codes to log every action on your account. For COVID-era penalty review, these are the codes that matter:

• 150 — Return filed and tax assessed (this confirms your filing date for that year)
• 166 — Failure-to-file penalty assessed
• 276 — Failure-to-pay penalty assessed
• 196 — Interest assessed
• 670 — Payment applied (shows when you paid down the penalty)
• 971 — Notice issued (often appears alongside penalty assessments)

For each penalty or interest code on your transcript, note three things:

1. The assessment date
2. The amount
3. Whether a corresponding payment was applied (look for code 670 or similar)

If you don't see codes 166, 276, or 196 on any of your transcripts for those years, you most likely don't have a Kwong-related claim. If you do see them, the next step is a conversation with us.

What to Send Us

Once you've pulled the transcripts, send us:

• A copy of each Account Transcript (PDF) for the years above
• A short note flagging which years show penalty or interest codes, if any

That's it. We'll take it from there, including determining whether your situation qualifies under Kwong and what the next steps look like.

A Note on the Deadline

The July 10, 2026 cutoff is statutory, not administrative. A missed deadline cannot be cured, even by a strong claim filed a day late. If you think you may have paid COVID-era penalties or interest, pull your transcripts now rather than waiting for tax season to wind down. The earlier we have the information, the more options we have.

Questions about pulling your transcript or reading the codes? Contact the office and we'll walk you through it.