How long do I have to respond to IRS Form 668-A?

21 days before the bank sends funds to the IRS. Use the deadline printed on your notice and verify how it is calculated. IRS deadlines may run from the notice or mailing date and are not automatically extended because the letter arrived or was opened late.

What should I do if I received IRS Form 668-A?

Bank account levy. Funds in the account are frozen for 21 days before the bank sends them to the IRS. If you are unsure, have a tax professional review the letter before you respond to the IRS.

IRS Form 668-A: Notice of Levy on Bank Account

Form 668-A freezes the money in your account. You have 21 days to get the levy released before the bank sends the funds to the IRS.

Form 668-A is the IRS bank levy served on your financial institution. The copy you received is a notification; the bank received the same form with instructions to freeze every dollar in the account up to the balance due. Unlike a wage levy, a bank levy is a one-time snapshot. It attaches only to funds on deposit at the moment the levy is received, not to future deposits.

The 21-Day Hold

By statute, the bank must hold the levied funds for 21 calendar days before sending them to the IRS. See IRC Section 6332(c). That 21-day window is the single most important window in a bank levy. If the IRS releases the levy during that period, the bank restores access to the money. After day 21, the funds leave the bank and recovering them from the IRS is dramatically harder.

The clock starts on the day the bank receives Form 668-A, not the day you learn about it. By the time most people see a frozen balance in their banking app, a few days of the 21 are already gone. Act the same day.

What Gets Frozen and What Does Not

Everything in the account on the day of the levy is subject to freeze, including balances that arrived minutes before the levy posted. Pending deposits that have not posted are generally not swept into the levy, and deposits made after the levy are not touched by this one. If a second levy is issued, however, the IRS can take those too.

Joint accounts are at risk even if only one spouse owes the tax. The IRS can levy the entire account and the non-liable co-owner must affirmatively claim their share back through a wrongful-levy claim.

Do not count on the federal rule that shields two months of directly deposited Social Security and VA benefits from ordinary creditors. That rule does not stop an IRS levy. The exemptions that do apply to IRS levies are listed in IRC Section 6334, and once money is sitting in a bank account they are hard to use.

How to Get the Levy Released

The IRS must release the levy if it creates an economic hardship under IRC Section 6343, if the funds are needed for basic living expenses, if the account was wrongfully levied, if the collection statute expired, or if a reasonable installment agreement is put in place that provides for release. Hardship is the most practical ground when the frozen funds were rent, payroll, or next week's groceries.

A Collection Appeals Program request (Form 9423) can force a review quickly. If a Collection Due Process notice was never issued or was sent to the wrong address, the levy may be defective, and that opens a separate path.

Why This Came Without Warning

A bank levy only looks sudden. Outside of jeopardy and a few other exceptions, the IRS must have sent a final notice of intent to levy (CP90, Letter 1058, or LT11) at least 30 days before Form 668-A was issued. The law only requires that notice to go to your last known address. If it did, the levy is valid even if you never saw the notice. If the IRS had a newer address on file and mailed to an old one anyway, the notice may be defective, and that is worth raising immediately. You may also still be within the one-year window to request an Equivalent Hearing.

A frozen account is a 21-day problem that becomes a permanent problem on day 22. If a Form 668-A hit your bank, call us at (813) 229-7100 today. Bank levy releases are time-sensitive and we work them accordingly.