Taxation & Estate Planning

: IRS Problem Solver Blog

Can You Stop an IRS Audit?

By Darrin Mish (index)

It is all but impossible to stop an IRS audit once it has begun.  The best advice for this IRS problem is to get IRS help . . . immediately.  You need a tax professional to protect your rights and assure the most beneficial outcome possible in this situation.

There are typically three kinds of audits: normal audits, a letter audit, or a fraud audit.  Representation of your case by a knowledgeable member of our staff can be of the utmost importance in settling your case in the best manner available.

The best way to stop an IRS audit is to try and negotiate a settlement.  Don?t attempt this on your own; you definitely need IRS help to solve this IRS problem.  The IRS would rather negotiate a settlement and conclude a case, and go on to the next one, than spend time and resources on a case that may drag on for an indeterminate amount of time.  Using the negotiation method, they can make their way through more cases and spend less time and resources doing so.

The IRS has a substantially high margin of error in these types of cases and you will benefit from the fact that they don?t wish to take a case with perhaps weak facts and evidence to court and possibly waste resources.  That fact is in your favor to negotiate a settlement and stop an IRS audit.

Representatives of the IRS and an Appeals Officer have the power to negotiate and compromise on issues.  You, with knowledgeable IRS help, have the rare advantage of a victory because the IRS desires to complete cases quickly.

The strength of the arguments made by your professional tax consultant on your behalf can bring a 100 percent surety of a settlement in your favor, if the laws and facts back up what is presented.  In other cases where there may be some give-and-take in the strengths or weaknesses of the facts involved in your particular situation, you may arrive at a lesser settlement.  But a settlement with a mutual agreement nonetheless is far better than a complete loss.

The best way to prevent this IRS problem from becoming an issue is to only take legitimate deductions and credits you are entitled to.  A computer program is used to compare individual tax returns against each other, looking for oddities that may arise.  Using this comparison, the computer may ?flag? your tax return for further scrutiny.  The ideal would be if your tax return didn?t have any reason to ?stand out? from the normal individual?s tax return.

Other things to make sure you do so as not to draw attention to yourself are:

1.  Report all your income.
2.  Ensure your itemized deductions aren?t unusually high compared with your income.
3.  If you are the owner of a business, double-check and triple-check all your figures.  Just due to the fact that you own a business can cause a second glance in your direction because of the extra ability to hide income or take extra deductions that are not real.
4.  Keep accurate records, especially if you are paid in cash.
5.  If you are divorced and have children, make sure both parents know how the other is filing their tax return.
6.  Be especially careful with recordkeeping if you have an offshore account.
7.  Choose a legitimate tax consultant.  The IRS keeps a list of unscrupulous tax preparers and just seeing one of those names will raise a red flag.

Contact our office for IRS help to your IRS problems.  We are legitimate and honest, and our record speaks for itself.  Let us help with your IRS problems today. You can call us tollfree at (888) 438-6474. We represent taxpayers all around the United States and the world.

Full post as published by IRS Problem Solver Blog on January 05, 2008 (boomark / email).