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Award).
• Kollaja recommends several ways to prepare for and attend an audit: Respond to the IRS within the stated deadline - usually 30 days.
• Organize paperwork and receipts pertinent to the issues they've identified.
• If you won't have everything ready in time for the audit, contact your auditor to discuss whether it can proceed anyway, or if they'll agree to postpone it.
• Bring or send only documentation requested in the initial notice. At an in-person audit, keep you answers brief and don't voluntarily provide information that could launch a fishing expedition.
• If the examiner questions you on an item not mentioned in the initial notice, you're allowed to ask for additional time to fulfill additional requests.
• Never give original receipts to the IRS agent - they are not responsible for lost paperwork.
• You're allowed to make an audio recording of the audit provided you sent your agent written notice 10 days before the appointment. Video recordings are not allowed.
• Always be polite. Acting belligerent or evasive can only hurt your cause.
• Kollaja suggests reading IRS Publication 556 to learn more about how the audit process works and reviewing the section on itemized deductions in Publication 17, both available at www.irs.gov.
• Bottom line: Think positively - you might even come out of the audit with a tax refund - it happens.