for Tax Time!

Audit! A Highly Taxing Experience

By Rick Horowitz

There's an IRS agent just down the hall, picking through my life with a ballpoint pen and a friendly smile.

"They're supposed to be friendly," the accountant has already warned me. "If you find yourself getting friendly with her, get out of the room." I'm out of the room, two doors down the hall, awaiting her call. Before I could escape, there were some "preliminary questions" about how I do what I do, and an explanation of why they're doing what they're doing to me.

What they're doing to me is an audit.

There -- I said it. The IRS agent did, too, just a couple of minutes ago, which is more than the letter she sent me a few weeks back -- the first evidence I ever had that my government was taking an active interest in little old me -- ever did. "Examination," it said. "Additional information to verify certain items," it said. "Substantiate all items affecting tax liability," it said.

It said everything but the one word it needed to say: "Audit," the procedure that dare not speak its name. It's Wednesday, 10:24 a.m.

She's been here since 9:30. I've been here since 8:45, making sure everything is ready for her. I've left her with the paper trail of my life. Bank statements. Ledger sheets. Check stubs. Register receipts. It's all in good shape, the accountant assures me, so good that he's "breaking every rule of accounting" and letting me meet the IRS agent by myself (though he'll be in his own office farther down the hall, just in case.) There's nothing for her to find, he tells me -- why pay him even more money to show her that?

What she's looking for, she didn't say. "You'll want to go back down the hall," the accountant has predicted, "and make sure everything's okay, that she's got everything she needs. Don't!" If there's nothing for her to find, why do I feel like I'm hiding something? It's 10:33.

Just the other day, a friend was busy being appalled at how passive I am at wringing every possible dollar out of my country at tax time. The amount I deduct for my office-in-the-home, for instance; she'd have taken five times as much. "You can always move your furniture around if they ever decide to audit you," she says. I didn't have the heart to tell her.

The IRS agent is dressed sensibly, a lavender blouse with a lavender bow at the neck, a gray tweed jacket, upswept hair. She asks a question, listens to my answer, writes it all down in longhand. There are long silences as she writes. "That's a tactic," the accountant has warned me. "Most people are uncomfortable with silences, and they'll start to talk just to fill them up." I notice she's left-handed. "Ah, another lefty!" I'd have said under other circumstances, just to make conversation. "Volunteer nothing," the accountant says.

It's 10:52. What is she doing in there?

It's 11:23. I've just brought the agent the old return she wanted. She's got her glasses off now, my files spread out in front of her on the table. I've also brought her the news that the accountants need the conference room between 12:30 and 1:30. Then that's when she'll take her lunch, she says. She smiles pleasantly. I get out of the room.

The accountant comes by to take me to lunch. 12:30 already? Times flies when you're a fugitive from justice.

The accountant is feeling a bit blue today. It's the height of tax season, and his work load is enormous. I offer comforting words, try to cheer him up. Very nice -- I'm the one being audited, and he's depressed.

It's 1:41. The agent's already back from lunch. I stop by to tell her I'm back, too. She has "just a few minor questions" for me. A trap! Where's the swinging light bulb, the cattle prod?

Or maybe not; the questions actually do seem pretty minor. I even get to correct her once when she misreads my return and asks me to explain a number I've never heard of. "Oops," she says, smiling pleasantly. "Sometimes my eyes just do that." I wonder if she'd accept an excuse like that from me.

She even offers a bit of record-keeping advice, so that my documents will be in better shape "for future audits."

"I'm not planning on doing this again," I tell her. She smiles pleasantly. I'm out of the room. It's 2:03.

Embarrassing, that's what it is. Even if you've done nothing wrong, even if you figure your tax return ought to get you a Good Citizenship Award, it's just embarrassing. And if you did do something wrong -- not illegal, mind you, just something where reasonable people -- even reasonable auditors -- can differ, and she comes across it and doesn't think it's reasonable at all?

What's taking her so long? I'm innocent, I tell you! Innocent! It's all been a terrible mistake!!

Control yourself. It's 3:22.

I've caught up on my correspondence. I've read two newspapers; I should have brought a book. I decide to take a walk. I enter the hall and there she is, signalling me. How long was she waiting there for me? Did she know I was about to step out? What else does she know?

I follow her to the conference room.. I sit down. She looks up. She smiles.

"I'm very impressed," she tells me. "Your records are impeccable." Impeccable records! And after all these years of thinking I was the Bermuda Triangle of Data. "Impeccable," as certified by the IRS, no less. I--

"However," she says. "However." She's going to have to disallow the entire deduction for my office-in-the-home. I have only one phone in the place; it sits on my desk. I use it for business and for pleasure. "Exclusive use" means exclusive use, she says; therefore, it's disallowed.

I state my disagreement, trying to keep my voice steady.

She holds her ground.

Time to fetch the accountant.

He brings in the maps. He brings in the rule books. He tells her that even if she eliminates the small chunk of desk where the phone sits, and the slightly larger chunk where I sit while I'm conducting non-business on that phone, we're still ahead. It happens that I remeasured the whole space just last weekend, just got down on my hands and knees (good preparation for an audit) with a tape measure, and it's even larger than I originally claimed.

Suddenly we become statesmen. The accountant crosshatches an even bigger chunk of non-deductible desk on the map, figures the additional square footage (or in my case, square inchage) he's giving up, calculates the remaining percentages. We're still ahead. He offers the map to the agent.

It's not big money we're talking about anymore, but it's money I'd rather keep than give away. Besides, what we're after above all, my accountant says, is a "no-change" audit. Anything else, and I'm even more likely to get audited again next year, or the year after that. One of these per lifetime is plenty.

The agent takes the map, says she'll consider our position and get back to me in the next few weeks. I think we've convinced her, but who knows?

She thanks me for my help. She thanks the accountant for his comfortable chairs. She's a very nice woman. I never want to see her again.

It's 4:26.

Epilogue: It's the following Wednesday, 1:35 p.m. In the mail is another letter from the IRS:

"Dear Taxpayer: After further consideration of your tax returns for the above periods, we have accepted them as filed.

Sincerely yours...

That's it. "Never mind." No "Sorry about the inconvenience." No "Sorry about the time you had to waste, or the chunk of money you had to pay, just to get ready for us." As suddenly as they appeared, they're gone.

I'm a free man again. But I know they're out there.

Happy April 15th.