In most tax audits the IRS is only interested in collecting the taxes owed, plus interest along with a few penalties. Perhaps the IRS might impose a negligence penalty or a late filing penalty. However, if during the tax audit the IRS suspects that you have committed tax fraud they can impose a civil tax […]
A new client once came to me saying she had made an error in preparing her tax return and inadvertently took a deduction to which she was not entitled. “Will I go to jail if I’m audited?” The answer of course, is no. If that were the case, you might as well surround the country […]
IRS auditors are trained to spot common types of deception and attempts to defraud the Federal government. Any of these acts are called “Badges Of Fraud”. Now the IRS in an audit expects to find a few errors on a tax return and I would agree that a little bit of fudging here or there […]
It is usually impossible to get the inside scoop of how the IRS is looking at taxpayers but sometimes a retired IRS agent will provide me with some valuable insight. Before I go into this, let’s cover some of the basics about the structure of the IRS. Generally, there are four classes of employees at […]
Filing taxes is punishment enough without the vague threat of an IRS audit looming over our heads. For understandable reasons, the IRS insists on keeping the ins and outs of its auditing process on the murky side. After all how will the IRS catch the bad guys if you give them the rule book first? […]
You can’t have it both ways. More than one small business owner has either underreported his income or overstated his business expenses in order to save on income taxes. But that can come back to haunt them when they go to sell the business. While not universally true, most buyers base their offer on the […]
Crime doesn’t pay. Despite using money from crime to temporarily fund a lavish lifestyle, Rashia Wilson of Tampa, Florida, learned her lesson the hard way before a Federal District Court Judge in July 2013 when she was sentenced to 21 years of prison for Tax Fraud and Weapons Charges. She is also ordered to pay […]
Thanks to Big Data analysis and digital information-gathering tactics, the IRS employs a more watchful eye than ever especially with the fiscal challenges faced by the Federal government, the pressure for the IRS to recover lost revenue has never been higher. Conveniently enough, the IRS has made massive investments in its computing power and tools for […]
Unlike a civil tax examination, a criminal tax investigation has little to do with the assessment of additional tax. The purposes of a criminal investigation are (1) to detect suspected criminal tax offenses and (2) to refer those offenses for criminal prosecution. The government’s goal is to obtain a conviction that results in imprisonment, fines, […]
The IRS Criminal Investigation Division (“CID”) is made up of Special Agents who are duly sworn law enforcement officers who are trained to “follow the money”. CID may open up an investigation in higher profile cases as a result of coordination with the FBI, DEA, INS and other agencies. However, average citizens should not assume […]
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