IRS Audit Overview
Pre-audit Analysis
An in-depth pre-audit analysis is essential to conducting a quality examination. IRS Examiners, Revenue Agents, should prepare a comparative analysis of the taxpayer’s returns for multiple years to assist in the identification of:
• large, unusual and questionable items,
• missing schedules, statements and/or elections
• inconsistencies between different years, and
• audit potential.
A successful IRS taxpayer audit depends upon what is done before the interview. The IRS examiner should obtain as much information about the taxpayer, be organized, and prepare an interview outline that is tailored to the taxpayer under examination. As preliminary information is gathered, it should be carefully reviewed and documented for the IRS tax audit.