I’ve been doing my own taxes since I was 16. It’s really not that hard when your taxes aren’t too complicated. That and I’m just too cheap to hand someone money to do what I can do on my own. I must be doing it correctly since I’ve never been audited, but today I am doing some community service and pointing out ten red flags that will get the IRS to audit your taxes.
Statistically, getting audited is a pretty rare event. Only about 1.11% of all tax filers are every audited, but if you happen to do some dumb things, you raise those odds dramatically.
No matter who prepares your taxes you are ultimately responsible for what gets submitted to the IRS. It doesn’t matter if the tax preparer was shady or if you miraculously found some extra receipts to submit to the IRS. If you don’t want the IRS popping up at your door, don’t do anything below. […]