tax audit questions

Audits are avoidable: From outlandish charitable giving to claiming a home office, there are a host of specific thing that can set of warning bells with the IRS. Here are the things the IRS looks for, and tips to help you avoid its scrutiny.

For the fiscal year 2009, about 1.4 million taxpayers were chosen for audit. This represents about 1% of the 140 million tax returns filed in 2008 -- pretty good odds. Of those, about 75% were correspondence, or "paper" audits, and the remaining 25% were field or "in person" audits. Even though the...

In 2008, about 1.4 million taxpayers were chosen for audit. This represents about 1% of the 140 million tax returns filed -- pretty good odds. Of those, about two-thirds were correspondence, or "paper" audits, and the remaining one third were field or "in person" audits. Even though the numbers of...