IRS Audit

[T.B.]

Got a notice in the mail today that the IRS is doing a multi-year audit of my taxes, focusing on medical deductions. My medical costs have been high the past few years mostly because my wife's had a number of major surgeries and related issues. One problem I see is because we've often paid bills online and have since switched banks and insurance companies, we don't have a lot of "cancelled checks" and other direct paper trail the IRS seems to want as proof (no spreadsheets, etc) we can easily (if at all) get to.

Anyone else go through this and have suggestions?

[JustDave]

I think you should be able to go back to the bank and get copies of what you need, even if you don't bank there anymore. Same with the insurance company. I'm sure both will charge you. What about the bills from doctors, hospitals, etc. Do you have those? Can you get them? They would also have a record of what you paid.

Do you have an accountant? If not, you may want to consider getting one who deals with IRS audits. He or she knows how to play "the game" with the IRS.

[T.B.]

I think you should be able to go back to the bank and get copies of what you need, even if you don't bank there anymore. Same with the insurance company. I'm sure both will charge you. What about the bills from doctors, hospitals, etc. Do you have those? Can you get them? They would also have a record of what you paid.

Do you have an accountant? If not, you may want to consider getting one who deals with IRS audits. He or she knows how to play "the game" with the IRS.

We keep huge tupperware boxes for every year full of all our receipts fairly well organized in folders. I'd guess we have at least 90% of everything as far as bills, etc well documented on paper. My big concern is coming up with on-line payment receipts due to the issues noted in my original post.

And no, we don't have an accountant, we've done our taxes via Turbotax the last 5 or so years.

[lovemachine97(Version 2)]

Might wanna PM Dave’s Dreidel.


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[japeape]

Got a notice in the mail today that the IRS is doing a multi-year audit of my taxes, focusing on medical deductions. My medical costs have been high the past few years mostly because my wife's had a number of major surgeries and related issues. One problem I see is because we've often paid bills online and have since switched banks and insurance companies, we don't have a lot of "cancelled checks" and other direct paper trail the IRS seems to want as proof (no spreadsheets, etc) we can easily (if at all) get to.

Anyone else go through this and have suggestions?

Get ready to pay!

Same deal happened to a co-worker, who is a pretty honest dude, but he did
not keep receipts (neither do i), and he also freelances, which is tricky to file.

I use Turbo Tax, as well, and they really pissed me off last year:

You do their "free" filing, then when you are almost done, it's:
to proceed you need to pay...TWICE...if you wanna file State, as well.

My taxes are the simplest things known to man (not married, no kids, one job, etc.)

And the reason was that my taxes were more complicated to qualify for the "free" filing.

[Get The Show On The Road]

Got a notice in the mail today that the IRS is doing a multi-year audit of my taxes, focusing on medical deductions. My medical costs have been high the past few years mostly because my wife's had a number of major surgeries and related issues. One problem I see is because we've often paid bills online and have since switched banks and insurance companies, we don't have a lot of "cancelled checks" and other direct paper trail the IRS seems to want as proof (no spreadsheets, etc) we can easily (if at all) get to.

Anyone else go through this and have suggestions?

I don't have any suggestions but I just wanted to say I'm sorry you're dealing with this.

That's some bullshit that you've had to deal with some medical issues for your wife and the IRS starts harassing you because of it.

Love our country but our government can go fuck itself.

[Brett]

Did you file late?

[fudd]

My dad once called the treasurer of the United States over an audit. I’ll never forget it. Mary Ellen Withrow.


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[T.B.]

Did you file late?

No, never late. I clearly get why I got flagged, our medical deduction is crazy high when balanced with our income (almost 50% of adjusted income). We do a pretty good job of documenting but my concern is the issues getting payment info from long closed bank accounts and our old Wageworks medical account.

[T.B.]

My dad once called the treasurer of the United States over an audit. I’ll never forget it. Mary Ellen Withrow.


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Did he get a positive result or was it simply the short-lived satisfaction of venting at a government muckity-muck?

[Dave's Dreidel]

Face to face audit or a correspondence audit?

Don't let the agent come to your house, you go meet the agent. Etc. etc.

Ping me if you want to talk.

[T.B.]

Face to face audit or a correspondence audit?

Don't let the agent come to your house, you go meet the agent. Etc. etc.

Ping me if you want to talk.

First off, thanks for the offer. I'm only a day into this and obviously a bit freaked out and the first thing I think I need to do is get my ducks in a row.

It's going to be face to face at the local office in beautiful downtown Santa Ana.

What I got was a specific audit of Schedule A medical expenses on our 2017 Federal return. Now I get why it was flagged - we have crazy high medical expenses for everyone in my family. I have a few old guy chronic medical issues, my wife has had some life-threatening medical issues and a couple major surgeries, my son suffers from autism - you add all the monthly meds, office visits, surgeries monthly insurance premiums (it's a PPO) with high deductables) plus the fact we went three months on Cobra insurance in the middle of the year at $2 a month for 90 days while she started her new job, it added up to almost 50% of our total annual ncome.

My plan this weekend is to organize the mountain of physical receipts we have, copy them in some fashion so it's not hard to get through to see where we stand as far as how close we are to totally documenting what we deducted. I'll call the IRS guy on Monday to set up the office appt - I don't know how long of a lead time I can get because I'm sure I'm going to have to contact my old bank, the Wage Works medical card bank and probably my old doctors and the hospital to get pay records for what they did for my wife. That part seems like it's going to be brutal.

If we get hammered on the audit, I'll appeal and likely get a tax attorney and go from there.

[Brett]

We have a lot of medical shit too TB I feel for you.

[fudd]

Did he get a positive result or was it simply the short-lived satisfaction of venting at a government muckity-muck?

He only had to meet with them once and didn’t have to pay anything. It was over something in his business Is all I can remember. But I remember her calling our house in like 1994. I think it worked. Sadly I can’t ask him.


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