If you ever have the unfortunate experience of being audited by the IRS, there are some things you’ll need to know.
First of all, contact a tax attorney to go over what kind of audit has been made. He or she will be able to tell you why the audit was issued, which could be any number of things such as activity on your return, 1099 and W-2 forms that don’t match, if your report involved transactions with others being audited, or automatic flags, where computer programs find outlying “flags” on returns.
There are a few different types of tax audits.
A Correspondence Audit: Copies of cancelled checks and receipts will be requested to be sent to the office of the IRS Service Center. This audit is done remotely
An Office Audit: The IRS Service will ask you to procure and bring certain documents to their office where the audit will take place.
Finally, a Taxpayer Compliance Measurement Program Audit: This is the most extensive type of audit. The IRS will look at every nook and cranny of your tax return, including birth and marriage certificates. The primary purpose of this audit is to update the data used to write the computer scoring system.
It is highly recommended that for both field and TCMP audits that you have a IRS audit attorney with experience dealing with the present while it is conducted. When you are audited, gather all of your documents and receipts that may be considered helpful in the auditing process but never send original copies, make copies for yourself and only send what is requested.