Every field of activity has its own peculiar tax considerations. Churches are no exception. In fact, churches, and the clergy who serve them, probably have more unusual tax peculiarities to consider than many other fields. It is fair to ask whether this reasoning applies to tax audits. Are churches more […]
Category: Audits
If the Internal Revenue Service puts someone through the stress and round-up-the-records work of an audit, you’d think the agency would conduct the audit in a timely and accurate manner. Unfortunately, according to a new report, that is often not the case. The report was released last week by the […]
IRS audits are hardly an experience that anyone would seek out. For individuals and businesses alike, it can be time-consuming and laborious to satisfy the agency’s scrutiny. Naturally, it can also be stressful, with the potential risk of tax penalties or even criminal tax charges. If, however, an IRS audit is already […]
When a business fails to pay its payroll taxes in to the government, it’s a recipe for trouble. As we noted in our July 2 post, the penalties for not paying these employment taxes in to the Social Security trust fund can be substantial. For starters, there may be an employment […]
The phrase “IRS audit” carries connotations that differ from taxpayer to taxpayer. If you’ve done all you can to file flawless tax returns, notice of an audit might seem like an outrage. Yet a different feeling – one of anxiety – could come if you fear you might have been […]
In the traditional children’s story of the “boy who cried wolf,” an attention-seeking adolescent raised too many false alarms about dangers from a threatening beast. Because he had been wrong so many times before, the boy ended up not getting the response he needed when he truly was in danger. […]
“God does not play dice,” Albert Einstein famously said. The great physicist was speaking about the degree of order in a universe that can seem random – not, of course, about tax law. But Einstein’s rhetorical statement raises a relevant question: How does the IRS decide when to subject someone […]
The IRS does not operate in a vacuum. The agency is affected by political pressure to cut the federal budget, and for the second straight year has less money to do its work. IRS audits may be affected by the reduction in the agency’s budget of about 2 percent compared to […]
The IRS is supposed to be accessible to taxpayers. That is why the agency’s Taxpayer Advocate service is starting to conduct a pilot project on the use of teleconferences between case workers and taxpayers who have questions. IRS audits are another possible forum for video conferences. Nina Olson, the National Taxpayer […]
A basic principle of the tax collection system should be fairness. For the system to work, people of all income levels -rich, poor and middle class alike – should get equal treatment from the IRS. And yet IRS audits are very much skewed toward higher income taxpayers. That is what the evidence […]