01Letters 6174 and 6174-A tell you the IRS believes you have or had virtual-currency accounts, remind you of the reporting rules, and ask for no reply.02The difference between them is tone: 6174 is educational; 6174-A adds that the IRS may follow up with enforcement.03Both mean the same underlying fact — your name is in a dataset. The letter is the notification; the dataset is the point.
What "no response required" actually means
It means the IRS is not opening a file on you today. It does not mean your reporting was fine, and it does not mean the matter is closed — the letter says, in effect, "we know about the accounts; we assume you will check your own filings." Nothing you send back is requested; everything you file next is watched by the same matching systems that generate CP2501s and CP2000s.
The quiet window
Here is the useful way to read this letter: it is the least urgent letter in the series, received at the moment of maximum optionality. No deadline is running. No response will be sworn. Every door on the disclosure page that was open before the letter is, in practical terms, still open after it — but the letter is also evidence that the IRS has your name, which is exactly the fact that eventually closes the formal disclosure door. The window is quiet. It is not permanent.
A 6174 is the only letter in this series you get to answer on your own schedule. That is its entire value — spend it deliberately.
What to do — without a deadline pushing
- Audit your own prior years first. Pull filings and records for every year with digital-asset activity. Either everything was reported — or it was not, and you now know before the IRS asks.
- If everything was reported: file the letter and keep the records. The reconciliation habit from the 1099-DA page is what keeps the next letter from arriving.
- If something was not: treat this as the starting gun, not a scare. Read the disclosure page, then decide the door with a professional — while the choosing is still yours.
- Do not "reply to explain." No response is requested; an unsolicited signed narrative can only fix your story before you have decided it. If anything is to be filed, it is returns — in the right order.
6174 vs 6174-A, in one line
Same fact, different temperature: 6174-A says out loud that enforcement may follow. Neither requests a reply; treat both as the same instruction — check your own years now, while the calendar is still empty. If instead you received the letter that demands a signed response, that is Letter 6173, and it is a different animal.
This page explains a letter that requests no response. It is not advice on your filings, and reading it creates no professional relationship.