Is Turbo Tax Audit Defense Worth It

You Can Reduce Your Chances Of An Audit

Certain items on your tax return may attract the attention of the IRS and make you a more likely target for a tax audit. For example:

• Business losses that are actually hobbies: If you raise horses or dogs, for example, and take a loss every year, the IRS may disallow it because your business only classifies as a hobby.
• Deductions and credits for unusual amounts: If you claim you give a large portion of your income to charity in the form of noncash contributions, the IRS may want a closer look.
• Business deductions: The IRS may take particular interest in unusually large travel or entertainment business expenses.
• Large casualty losses: You can only deduct losses not reimbursed by your insurance company. If you write-off a large casualty loss, the IRS may want to look closer at the situation.

Despite those situations, dont be dissuaded from taking deductions you qualify for just because youre afraid of a tax audit. Just be aware that the IRS may look into certain items. Keep your records in good shape in case they do.

Home Office Deductions That Are Through The Roof

A home office that takes up 10% of your homes floor space seems reasonable. A home office that takes up half of your six-bedroom home seems unrealistic and may trigger an audit.

When calculating what percentage of your home is used for your business, or WFH office space, be precise, be reasonable, and, above all, follow the CRAs guidelines for making home office deductions.

Was Basically Told There Was Nothing

Was basically told there was nothing they could do to defend my case even though IRS changed rules after the fact and neither Turbo Tax nor I made any mistakes. They advertise that if you sign up you get full representation but they basically just tell you to pay additional fees.

Reply from TaxAudit

We are sorry to hear that our service did not meet your expectations. The IRS and State Taxing Agencies send out hundreds of thousands of letters each year with proposed changes to tax filings. In your case, you are correct the state agency indicated neither you nor your tax preparer was at fault. Instead, one of their worksheets contained an error in the calculations. Thus, when preparing your return, you did nothing wrong, nor did the Tax Software. Your case was related to a calculation error, not an issue based on interpretation differences in tax law. However, once the state agency became aware of its own error, it proposed changes to any returns with the incorrect tax, such as yours. That proposal resulted in an additional tax assessment for you, but they did not levy any penalties or interest charges. When an adjustment is based on the existing tax laws of the IRS or State, TaxAudit does not have any authority to compel the agency to change legislative tax law. When these types of cases arise, we are here to confirm the accuracy of the adjustment to ensure that taxpayers are not paying any more than they are legally required to pay. ~TaxAudit Team

Read Also: Doordash Payable Account

You Misreported Your Taxable Income

Wages are reported on Form W-2 and Form 1099 includes, but is not limited to, self-employment and investment income. Both series are reported to the IRS and some state tax agencies.

Math and transpose errors will be corrected by most tax software or the IRS automated under-reporter system. But if the misstatement of your income looks intentional and not in error, your tax return is likely to get flagged for audit.

Carefully check that you received every W-2 and 1099 you were expecting. Form 1099-NEC is now used for freelancer and contract pay of at least $600 per payer, while royalty income has a minimum threshold of $10 for Form 1099-MISC. If the 1099 forms do not match your records, or you are owed a form but do not have it, contact the payer to get a corrected form issued before you file your tax return.

What Is Audit Protection

Before you buy an insurance product like audit protection insurance, its important to know what youre buying. Audit protection doesnt protect you from being audited.

Nobody can prevent you from being audited. The IRS has the right to audit anyone, and its audit process is at least partially random.

Buying audit protection doesnt protect you from being audited. In that sense, its a little bit like identity theft insurance. ID theft insurance doesnt prevent you from having your identity stolen, but it can make the cleanup process a bit easier.

Audit protection is an add-on service provided by some tax filing companies. They guarantee that a certified tax professional will help you understand communication from the IRS.

They will also help you draft response letters, so you can deal with the audit efficiently.

Read Also: Find Employers Ein

Should You Use Turbotax

If you use TurboTax, you can be confident that you will be using a premium, easy-to-use product that will take most of the pain out of preparing your tax return.

That said, it comes at a high price point and has a habit of upselling its more robust features that you may not actually need.

The choice is up to you, but keep in mind that there are other tax preparation options available to you.

Preparation And Documentation Are Key

Sometimes, tax returns are randomly pulled for audit regardless of what you did. However, properly mitigating common audit triggers can prevent it from happening in the first place or simply help prepare you if you get an audit notice.

Having adequate documentation and records is the best preventative measure when it comes to IRS audits. When you are able to easily and accurately reference your records, you are less likely to make mistakes inputting these items on your tax return in the first place.

If your tax return gets selected for audit, being able to easily find your records will expedite the appeal process.

The top IRS 9 triggers are up next. Additional high-priority audit triggers can be found here.

Don’t Miss: 1040paytax.com Official Site

Forgetting To Report Income

Not reporting your income from T-slipsis never a good idea. This is because any employer you work for will issue you a T4 and send the CRA a copy. If you dont report all of your T4 income, the CRA will notice.

Avoid this misstep by keeping a record of any transaction that involves a cash paymentand remembering to claim it when the time comes.

An Audit Is Triggered Whats Next

If your tax return is selected for audit, you will receive a notice in the mail from the IRS. They will never notify you by phone, email, or social media. It is always sent to your last known address.

You will receive IRS Letter 2202 if the IRS requests a meeting in person, typically at your regional IRS office. It also contains instructions on how to prepare for your audit and which items in particular are being examined.

The IRS will give you a date and time for your face-to-face audit. You need to notify them within 10 days of the letter date if you cannot make it to your audit.

You may receive Letter 2205 instead, a shorter version of the audit notice which is a request for a phone call. This letter only tells you which tax years are being audited, not the actual tax matters like in the long version. The call is usually a preface to a face-to-face audit.

For all other correspondence audits, you will usually receive a CP2000 notice, or automated under-reporter notice if a specific item on your tax return caught the IRS attention. You must respond to the notice whether you agree with the assessment or not.

Also Check: Doordash Tax Deductions

If The Irs Audits You Dont Panic

Some IRS tax audits are not what you might expect at all. The IRS may just want additional documentation or a response about a particular item. Reply as quickly as possible and move on.

If the IRS requests an office or field audit, you can gather your information and represent yourself if you are comfortable doing so. You also have the right to choose someone to help. If you file your 2017 tax return using TaxAct, you can take advantage of audit protection services through Protection Plus.

You have certain rights as a taxpayer when you are subject to an audit. Besides the right to representation, you also have the right to know why the IRS is requesting information, to make an audio recording of an interview with notice, and not be examined over the same information repeatedly.

Writing Off 100% Of Your Vehicle

If you own a parking garage and buy a snowplow, the CRA may not raise an eyebrow if you write-off the entire purchase as a business expense. If, however, you attempt to write off 100% of the family sedan, the CRA may have a hard time believing you dont use it to take the kids to playdates and soccer practice.

The same logic applies to vehicle-related expenses: be precise, be reasonable, and follow the guidelines.

Read Also: Paying Taxes On Doordash

What Is Audit Defense

Some tax-preparation professionals, online tax-preparation services and DIY tax-software producers offer audit defense services. Generally, these services promise support should you ever face a state or IRS audit of a return you filed with the tax-service provider.

The level of support and actions the provider will take throughout the audit process can vary depending on the audit defense provider.

So How Should You Prepare For An Audit

Spend time organizing the documents you will need to support your claims in an audit, or hire an accountant or tax professional to do it for you.

Reischer recommends organizing the following documents by month and year so they are easily accessible and immediately available if requested:

• Receipts and bills.

You May Like: How Does Taxes Work For Doordash

Turbo Prepaid Visa Card

You can elect to receive your tax refund on a Turbo Prepaid Visa Card, a reloadable prepaid debit card backed by Intuit.

Moving forward, you can set up payroll direct deposit or make manual transfers to juice your card balance, making Turbo Prepaid Visa Card a great credit card alternative for those with poor credit or aversions to credit cards.

Bear in mind that certain card actions incur fees and charges. Before signing up, review the cards terms and conditions for important information about the product.

Important Things To Keep In Mind

Prepaid audit defense is different from audit representation, which involves hiring a professional to represent you once the IRS has notified you that youre being audited. Generally, you cant get audit defense after you learn youre being audited you have to purchase the protection before you file your return.

And audit defense services may come with an expiration date. For example, a service may agree to cover your return for up to three years from the date the IRS accepts a return for a given tax year, since the IRS generally can include returns that have been filed within a three-year period in an audit although the IRS may extend that timeframe to six or more years if it finds any substantial errors.

Also Check: How To Find A Companys Ein

The Taxaudit App Is Simply Terrible

The taxaudit app is simply terrible. Many attempts to use just did not work. The whole process is complicated. So-called “chat” feature simply took me to a technician for the website , who then sent me to a “coordinator” who did nothing but interrupt the process, then several weeks later got to a tax pro.

Reply from TaxAudit

We are sorry to hear that you experienced difficulty using our mobile application. We did attempt to contact you for additional information. While we do not know what caused the issues you experienced, we apologize for any inconvenience it caused regarding speaking to one of our tax professionals. TaxAudit works diligently to provide multiple secure methods to obtain any necessary documentation from our members. We are glad to see we could obtain the necessary information and are currently working on your case. TaxAudit appreciates you taking the time to share with us and others your feedback helps us continue improving our services. ~TaxAudit Team

Turbotax Pros And Cons

Here are some of the pros and cons based on our TurboTax Review.

Pros

• Quickbooks integration makes it extra convenient for Quickbooks users
• Professional tax experts available
• The step-by-step system is great even for complicated tax situations
• You can import a PDF of your last years return from another tax software program.
• Able to start your return for free with all of the programs

Cons

• Final price revealed at the completion
• Prices are higher than some other online tax filing options

One other con is that you wont know exactly what you owe until youve completed your return.

The reason TurboTax works this way is that there are extra features you might enable along the way as you file.

Therefore, saving your balance due until the end ensures youre billed for any extra services youve used.

However, filling out your forms with TurboTax is always free. In other words, you dont pay until you choose to complete and send the information to the appropriate tax authority.

Read Also: Does Doordash Send A 1099

Real Tax Experts On Demand With Turbotax Live Basic

Get unlimited advice and an expert final review. Done right, guaranteed.

• Estimate your tax refund andwhere you stand

• Know how much to withhold from your paycheck to get

• Estimate your self-employment tax and eliminate

• Know which dependents credits and deductions

• Estimate capital gains, losses, and taxes for cryptocurrency sales

• See which education credits and deductions you qualify forGet started

The above article is intended to provide generalized financial information designed to educate a broad segment of the public it does not give personalized tax, investment, legal, or other business and professional advice. Before taking any action, you should always seek the assistance of a professional who knows your particular situation for advice on taxes, your investments, the law, or any other business and professional matters that affect you and/or your business.

Youre Our First Priorityevery Time

We believe everyone should be able to make financial decisions with confidence. And while our site doesnt feature every company or financial product available on the market, were proud that the guidance we offer, the information we provide and the tools we create are objective, independent, straightforward and free.

So how do we make money? Our partners compensate us. This may influence which products we review and write about , but it in no way affects our recommendations or advice, which are grounded in thousands of hours of research. Our partners cannot pay us to guarantee favorable reviews of their products or services.Here is a list of our partners.

Also Check: Taxes With Doordash

A Tax Audit Doesnt Automatically Mean Youre In Trouble

While its true the IRS can audit people when they suspect they have done something wrong, thats often not the case. The IRS audits a portion of the taxpaying public every year. You can be selected purely as a matter of chance.

In other cases, something in a persons return can put them at a higher risk of an audit. Or, the information on their tax return doesnt match up with the data the IRS received from another source, such as a Form 1099-MISC.

Additionally, taxpayers who are above average earners are more likely to be audited. Higher income taxpayers not only tend to have more complex returns, but the IRS typically collects more money from them.

If You’re Getting A Refund

No matter how you file, you can choose to receive your refund several ways.

A direct deposit to a bank account is the fastest option. You can also have it loaded onto a Turbo Visa Debit Card or sent as a paper check.

Other options include applying the refund to next years taxes and directing the IRS to buy U.S. Savings Bonds with your refund.

You have the option of paying for the software out of your refund. But theres a $40 charge to do that.

Recommended Reading: Best Taxes Company

How Does Audit Defense Work

Here are a few features that may be included with some audit defense services.

• Responding to audit notices on your behalf
• Defending your federal and/or state tax return in audit hearings or meetings with auditors
• Providing access to and support from audit representatives who may be tax professionals, such as Enrolled Agents or CPAs
• Helping you resolve tax debt or identity theft associated with the audit
• Paying any penalties or fees if youre being audited because of a preparers or softwares mistake on your return

Turbotax Audit Defense Review

As previously mentioned in this TurboTax review, those who are subjected to a tax audit can get a TurboTax professional to defend and assist them before the IRS. The optional service is called TurboTax MAX and is used for more complex situations where an expert is needed. The service can be added to paid plans for $60 and is refundable if you cannot be connected to a tax professional.

TurboTax MAX services include:

• Loss insurance
• Restoration help.

MAX offers full professional representation before the IRS, from the first notice of the audit up to its completion. Reviews on TurboTax MAX are mostly positive sentiments in quantitative ratings, achieving four out of five stars from individuals who used the service. The majority of clients have praised TurboTax consultants for their high aptitude in tax cases and ability to explain and educate clients. TurboTax MAX also benefits clients when it comes to audit defenses, delivering positive conclusions.

Recommended Reading: Pin Number To File Taxes