First of all, I don’t have a super high paying job and not a lot of investment income at this point in m life. I don’t think that I claimed an abnormal amount of work related expenses.

What is my likelyhood of being audited?

What happens if I can’t produce receipts for everything that I’ve claimed?

What if you get caught without your seatbelt?

What would happen if all the pessimists in the world like you weren’t so pessimistic?

Either you have something to hide or you shouldn’t be worried about it! A wage earner has LESS than a 1% chance of being audited. And you probably didn’t deduct too much stuff that requires receipts anyway! THe WORST that can happen is that you don’t hire a tax pro to help you and the IRS disallows your deductions. You get a tax bill plus interest. You pay the tax. That’s IT!

Oh yeah, and they tell your mother!

The last time they threw a guy in jail because he couldn’t substantiate his deductions was during Prohibition.

- A Damn Fine Tax Advisor

I was audited by the IRS for my 2004 federal income tax returns and they found an error, which then affected my 2005 federal returns. I am being charged interest for both years. I am appealing their decision but I would like for my CPA who prepared my returns to share in the mistake. Is it possible to sue your CPA for such mistakes and is it common to sue the tax preparer for mistakes on income taxes? It appears that the CPA was either not aware/familiar with a tax law or just made a mistake. Whatever the case, I was audited and I have to pay for this mistake because I signed the tax returns. Please help!

You can’t sue the CPA for the tax amount, you would have had to pay that amount anyways. As for the interest, you had use of the money for the time that you didn’t pay the tax on it, but you could ask the CPA to pay for the interest. If there is any penalty the CPA should definitely pay for that. Also, you might see if you can some of the tax prep fee you paid returned to you. You might also want to look for another tax preparer, one who is more up-to-date on tax law changes. If the CPA refuses to pay anything, then you could sue him, more than likely in small claims court, and also report him to your state’s CPA society.