TribLive for the Chicago Tribune writes: The odds of being singled out by the Internal Revenue Service are very low, but certain types of deductions, even very common ones, can raise red flags with tax collectors and possibly trigger an audit.
To minimize the chance of getting an audit request from the IRS, tax experts say take care with certain deductions and keep good paperwork to back up claims.
Joy Taylor, assistant editor for The Kiplinger Tax Letter, said 0.96 percent of individual tax returns last year were audited, the first time in seven years that the overall individual audit rate slipped under 1 percent. The IRS has fewer resources, lower budgets and less personnel than before, she said, which is why there were fewer overall audits.
However, that doesn't mean the IRS has gotten any less zealous about audits. Instead, Taylor said, “They're more hyperfocused, doing what will get them the most bang for the buck.”
One of the biggest red flags the IRS looks for is outsize charitable donations relative to income. Taylor and Leif Novie, principal at Morrison Brown Argiz & Farra LLC, both said the IRS charts average deductions based on a person's income, so if charitable donations appear excessive, it may raise eyebrows.
The IRS may ask for proof of such donations; Taylor and Novie said charities will give receipts for contributions. Noncash donations of more than $5,000 without an appraisal of the item's value will invite closer examination.
Novie said one of the most common deductions for the self-employed that can trigger an audit is for a home office.
“Lots of individuals are under the misconception that they can deduct their home office even if they have another office to work in. The rule is you can only deduct a home office if you don't have another office available to you,” he said.
It has to be an area that's devoted exclusively and regularly to business, Taylor said. “If you have an office in the home, but it's also used as a rec room, that won't count.”
An offshoot of the home-based business deduction is one for a work vehicle, she said. Trying to claim an auto's use is all business is risky.
“Many people might own two vehicles and write one off 100 percent for business use. But you may be also dropping the kids off at school in the same car, taking them to practice, running personal errands in that car. There's a lot of fudging (by people) with business vehicles,” she said.
Many business owners will deduct losses, but Novie and Brittney Saks, U.S. personal financial services leader at PwC, said showing losses year after year may pique the agency's interest.
“If you have a business, you have more ability to offset your income with expenses, so there's more subjectiveness in there,” Saks said. “In particular (the IRS wants) to make sure it's a real business and not a hobby. It doesn't mean it's not a business. Over time, if you're going to have losses over three to five years, the burden of showing it's a business and not a hobby may shift to the taxpayer.”
Gene Sulzberger, senior vice president at EFG Capital Advisors, said that for affluent individuals, the IRS has turned a laserlike focus on foreign accounts. In the past, holders of overseas investment and bank accounts could just claim that not disclosing the accounts was an oversight, but that's no longer the case.
“Before you could say, ‘Oops, I have not been reporting that foreign income; I better fix that now.' No longer. It's gotten to the point now where the IRS has been demanding this (information) for some time. If you haven't been doing it, consult a tax attorney and your accountant right away. Some of the penalties include losing a good portion of that account, and it could be jail time depending on the level of culpability in not informing the U.S. government,” Sulzberger said.
Finally, Saks said, people worry simple mistakes like computational errors or transposing numbers will trigger an audit, but that's unlikely. The IRS will notify the taxpayer, since the agency has data matched up on a computer, but she said those typos are easily fixed.
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