<story><title>I.R.S. Tax Fraud Cases Plummet After Budget Cuts</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/business/economy/irs-tax-fraud-audit.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gamblor956</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m sure he did, but I don&amp;#x27;t know any clients that were audited over &amp;quot;minor and non-malicious&amp;quot; issues. There&amp;#x27;s a materiality threshold in place before the IRS will initiate audits, due to the resources required.</text></item><item><author>dsfyu404ed</author><text>&amp;gt;I can count on one hand how many former clients out of hundreds that had done &amp;quot;absolutely nothing wrong&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I think the person you&amp;#x27;re replying to means &amp;quot;violated the tax code in a minor and non-malicious way&amp;quot; whereas you mean &amp;quot;literally did not violate the tax code at all&amp;quot;.</text></item><item><author>gamblor956</author><text>As one of those former professional services providers, I can count on one hand how many former clients out of hundreds that had done &amp;quot;absolutely nothing wrong&amp;quot; and of those few clients, I can&amp;#x27;t name any that spent anywhere close to hundreds of thousands of dollars to deal with the audit.</text></item><item><author>grapehut</author><text>That is ignoring the enormous externalized costs. I have known business to have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in professional services when being investigated that have done absolutely nothing wrong.</text></item><item><author>therein</author><text>I remember reading a while ago that every $1 that goes into IRS to fund tax fraud cases yielded $1.2 in return. When that&amp;#x27;s the case, it seems like a no-brainer that it should be well-funded.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>schmookeeg</author><text>Too bad I wasn&amp;#x27;t your client, you&amp;#x27;d have experienced one. :)&lt;p&gt;I owned a business that was randomly selected for an NRP audit a few years back. Spent 35 grand on CPAs and defense. After 4 months of an &amp;quot;up to the elbow&amp;quot; exam of our books, received this from the IRS:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;After our audit, we are making the following changes to your return:&lt;p&gt;&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;...that was it. Nothing. No changes. Not even embarrassment or &amp;quot;lol just doing my job, them&amp;#x27;s the breaks kid&amp;quot; attitude. A total goat rodeo, the entire process. Imagine having to justify every cent on the books in OR out -- for a $2MM revenue business -- 3 years after the return was filed. Seriously impossible. Worse, just before the above letter, we were offered a settlement offer from the IRS for $20K -- to make them just go away. We declined.</text></comment>
<story><title>I.R.S. Tax Fraud Cases Plummet After Budget Cuts</title><url>https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/01/business/economy/irs-tax-fraud-audit.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>gamblor956</author><text>I&amp;#x27;m sure he did, but I don&amp;#x27;t know any clients that were audited over &amp;quot;minor and non-malicious&amp;quot; issues. There&amp;#x27;s a materiality threshold in place before the IRS will initiate audits, due to the resources required.</text></item><item><author>dsfyu404ed</author><text>&amp;gt;I can count on one hand how many former clients out of hundreds that had done &amp;quot;absolutely nothing wrong&amp;quot;&lt;p&gt;I think the person you&amp;#x27;re replying to means &amp;quot;violated the tax code in a minor and non-malicious way&amp;quot; whereas you mean &amp;quot;literally did not violate the tax code at all&amp;quot;.</text></item><item><author>gamblor956</author><text>As one of those former professional services providers, I can count on one hand how many former clients out of hundreds that had done &amp;quot;absolutely nothing wrong&amp;quot; and of those few clients, I can&amp;#x27;t name any that spent anywhere close to hundreds of thousands of dollars to deal with the audit.</text></item><item><author>grapehut</author><text>That is ignoring the enormous externalized costs. I have known business to have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in professional services when being investigated that have done absolutely nothing wrong.</text></item><item><author>therein</author><text>I remember reading a while ago that every $1 that goes into IRS to fund tax fraud cases yielded $1.2 in return. When that&amp;#x27;s the case, it seems like a no-brainer that it should be well-funded.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jdavis703</author><text>I was audited for a mistake in the $1,000 range. I had forgotten to report one of the many 1099 forms I received one year. It seems like the IRS has systems in place to detect this kind of mistake. I paid the ~$300 I owed and went on my way.</text></comment>