A CP215 for a Form 5472 penalty gives you a response window that matters more than the $25,000 headline: assemble the filing facts within 7 days, decide the abatement theory within 14, and respond in writing with documentation — never just pay by default. The plan below is how we recommend using that time; the notice itself states the actual deadline you have to work with, and that always comes first.

Key facts

  • CP215 is the IRS's Notice of Penalty Charge, and for foreign-owned LLCs it is most often the $25,000 Form 5472 penalty arriving under IRC §6038A(d) (IRS Form 5472 instructions).
  • The penalty applies per required form, per year — a business with more related parties or more delinquent years multiplies past the $25,000 base figure quickly (IRS: About Form 5472).
  • A continuation penalty of an additional $25,000 accrues for each 30-day period the underlying failure continues, starting 90 days after IRS notification (IRS Form 5472 instructions).
  • Reasonable-cause abatement is requested in writing, with documentation and facts — not a phone call and not a general statement of good intentions (IRS: Penalty relief for reasonable cause).

The day-by-day plan

This cadence is our own recommended internal rhythm for using the time before your notice's deadline — it is not an IRS-mandated schedule, and it does not override whatever date is printed on your specific CP215. Read that date first; everything below assumes you still have runway ahead of it.

Days 1–2: read the notice and calendar the real deadline. Confirm the EIN, the tax year, and the penalty amount match your records, and find the actual response date printed on the notice. Put that date on a calendar with a buffer of several days — not the last possible moment.

Days 3–7: gather the filing facts. Was Form 5472 filed for that year at all, filed late, or filed incomplete? Pull together the LLC's formation date, transaction records for the year in question, and any correspondence with a formation service, accountant, or bank that touched on US filing obligations. This is the raw material every abatement argument is built from.

Days 8–14: decide the abatement theory. With the facts assembled, identify which reasonable-cause narrative actually fits — reliance on a professional who never mentioned Form 5472, an objectively obscure obligation for a non-US owner with no other US filing history, or prompt self-correction once the requirement was discovered. What actually goes into that letter is its own detailed process once the theory is chosen.

After day 14, and before the notice's deadline: respond in writing. Send the response with supporting documentation attached, keep proof of mailing or transmission, and if the underlying Form 5472 still hasn't been filed, get it filed at the same time rather than waiting on the abatement decision.

Reading the notice's fields

A CP215 identifies the notice number, the LLC's EIN, the tax year at issue, the penalty amount, the Internal Revenue Code section behind it, and instructions for how to respond or pay. Two fields are worth double-checking immediately: the EIN and tax year, because a mismatch with your own records changes the entire response, and the response date, which is the one number on the page that actually controls your timeline. Everything else on the notice describes the penalty; only that date tells you how long you have to act.

Pay-then-refund vs. contest-first

There are two legitimate strategic postures, and which one fits depends on the strength of the facts. Contest-first means responding within the window with the reasonable-cause argument and documentation before paying anything — the cleaner path when the facts are strong and well-documented. Pay-then-refund means paying the penalty to stop it from growing, then pursuing a refund claim (Form 843 with a supporting statement) if the reasonable-cause argument succeeds afterward — a path some owners choose specifically for the certainty of stopping further accrual while the argument is still being built. Neither is automatically correct; it is a real decision to make deliberately, not a default to fall into because writing the letter feels harder than paying the bill.

The continuation-penalty clock (90 days)

If the underlying Form 5472 still has not been filed, a separate clock is running alongside the CP215 response window: 90 days after IRS notification, an additional $25,000 accrues for every 30-day period the failure continues. This is why, whatever you decide about contesting the assessed penalty itself, getting any still-unfiled Form 5472 actually filed is its own urgent, separate priority — it stops new exposure from accumulating regardless of how the abatement argument on the existing penalty eventually turns out.

Getting help without losing the window

Assembling a documented reasonable-cause case — especially from outside the US, across time zones, sometimes while trying to locate old correspondence with a formation service — often benefits from experienced help. But the response window keeps running whether or not you've found that help yet, which is exactly why the fact-gathering in days 1–7 shouldn't wait on first finding a preparer. Start pulling records immediately; bring in help to build the argument and draft the response once the facts are in hand, not before.

Frequently asked questions

Should I call the phone number printed on the notice? A phone call can be useful for confirming basic facts, like whether the notice is genuine or whether the IRS has your correct mailing address, but it should never replace a written response. The IRS's own guidance on penalty relief centers on documented, written explanations, and a phone conversation creates no record you can point back to later if there's ever a dispute about what was said. Treat a call as a supplement to the written response, never a substitute for it.

Does a foreign owner need Form 2848 for someone to respond to the notice on their behalf? If you want a representative — an accountant, enrolled agent, or attorney — to communicate directly with the IRS about the notice, discuss the case with an IRS employee, or receive copies of IRS correspondence, yes: a properly completed Form 2848, Power of Attorney and Declaration of Representative, needs to be on file first. Without it, the IRS generally will not discuss the specifics of your case with anyone other than you, even someone you have informally asked to help.

Does interest keep accruing while I'm contesting the penalty? Yes — once a penalty is assessed, an unpaid balance generally continues accruing interest the way other IRS liabilities do, which is one reason some owners choose to pay the penalty and pursue a refund claim if the reasonable-cause argument succeeds, rather than leaving a contested balance to accrue while the case is pending. Which approach makes more sense depends on the strength of the reasonable-cause facts and the owner's own risk tolerance, and is worth deciding deliberately rather than defaulting to either path.

What if notices for multiple years arrive at once? Treat each year as its own separate exposure with its own deadline on its own notice, even when several arrive together and clearly share the same underlying cause. Build one coherent reasonable-cause narrative across the years where the facts genuinely overlap — the same formation-service reliance or the same discovery date often explains more than one year at once — but calendar every notice's individual deadline on day one, so that focusing on one year's response never causes another year's deadline to slip past unanswered.

Written by Ifetoluwase Samuel Pirisola, Managing Director of Caldwell Tax Services, LLC — July 2026. General information, not tax advice for your specific situation — every CP215 response turns on the specific facts behind it. Start your intake if a notice just arrived and you want a second set of eyes before the response window closes.

Sources: IRS Form 5472 instructions · IRS: Penalty relief for reasonable cause · IRS: About Form 2848 · The $25,000 Form 5472 penalty · Glossary