There’s little that’s more ominous to your small business than an IRS audit. The contact is unavoidable, but it doesn’t have to put you in a panic. Audits are often random, and, if you’ve been honest on your filings and kept good books, the process should pass with relative ease at the hands of a trusted tax advocate. 

Unless you’re in the accounting or tax preparation business, doing the books and paying taxes probably isn’t what you love—it’s just part of the job.  But it’s essential. 

This post provides a general overview of small business bookkeeping and small business taxes and gives you tips for handling them effectively so you can spend more time doing what you do best.

If you’ve received an audit letter from the IRS, you’re not alone. More than 770,000 tax returns were audited in the 2019 fiscal year, according to the IRS,

With more than 140 million personal income tax returns filed, it's safe to say that most people will not be audited in a given year. But for those who do receive a notice of audit, there are important considerations to keep in mind. 

Imagine looking at your paystub and seeing that the IRS has garnished your wages, or perhaps even worse, they’re clawing back funds directly out of your bank account. It might feel inescapable, like falling into a pit of quicksand. 

This is not a situation any taxpayer wants, but if it happens to you (or you see it coming), it’s important to understand your rights, how to protect yourself, and what you can do to pull yourself out of the hole.

If your tax troubles have reached the point of wage garnishment or levies from the IRS, speaking with a tax professional is a wise step if you want to take any swift and corrective action. 

This blog post will cover the basics of garnishments and levies and walk you through a few scenarios where stopping the withholding, or at least softening the blow, is a possible outcome.

When Alisa* got audited, an honest mistake on her part underscored a cold, hard truth: the IRS is not anyone’s friend.

If you’ve ever been audited, you probably feel a lot like Alisa. Maybe a little scared or confused. Maybe a little angry and agitated. Being audited is not fun. 

If the IRS were a friend to Alisa, it would have kindly let her fix her error when she accidentally submitted the paperwork for her business tax returns instead of her personal tax returns. She was the one under audit, not her business, after all. 

When people think of the IRS, there is one word that people dread above all others: audit. Being audited by the IRS is analogous to getting a root canal from your dentist, in that it’s the worst thing that can happen with that person or service. Many different kinds of people can be audited, but one of the biggest targets for an audit are the self-employed.