there has been a steep increase in small business audits by the irs do you think this is smart when the economy is trying to recover this does two things not only takes money out of the economy growing jobs but also has business owners halt investments and reconsider future investment.

Yeah, ensuring an accurate return will kill growth. Is your argument based on small business needing to file bogus tax info to grow?

and how do you square this with the stated desirability of smaller government?

http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/03/gop-bill-irs-abortion-audits

Bear in mind that the Hyde Act has long prohibited the use of federal funding for abortions except in cases of rape/incest, which is a very small percentage of the total….

Can we afford this radical expansion of the IRS mandate, and if so, where should it end?

I am not sure about this, it will be interesting to see how it pans out. While I do not think tax-payer funds should be used to finance abortion, I dont agree with expanding any government agency.

Was self-employed at the time, received a letter to schedule an audit appointment at an IRS office. Completely ignored the letter. Never received any other letter for 5 years (there has been address changes though). Received tax refunds with no problems so far. Should "someone" be worried? Immediately get help? Is it a good idea to inquire about it after 5 years? Thanks anyone for their suggestions.

If you ignored an audit letter 5 years ago and never heard again, you just might be the lucky one in 10 million who fell through the cracks. Or maybe not…

Normally the audit would proceed with whatever information that the IRS had at their disposal. If the results didn’t increase your tax liability the matter would be dropped. (If it would have resulted in an additional refund, it’s too late to claim it now.)

OR, the IRS might just pick it up when they are doing a cull of the system for possible candidates for audit using the substantial misstatement rules, which allows them 6 years to assess additional tax. Letters for those audits have an annoying habit of hitting your mailbox a few weeks prior to the expiration of the 6 year statute of limitations. Those will really make your day. NOT!

although good statistics are not kept of IRS related suicides just curious with audits hitting record highs to fund the big government wanted by liberals what percentage of suicides is acceptable to liberals

A tax cheat still pays Some of the welfare, WIC, section 8, and food stamp bill.

A dead man pays NONE OF IT!

Go Liberals GO!

I’m curious if they have to respond to Uncle Sam and the IRS in any way

Anyone in the know about this?

if they do business in the US, of course they do