[Ricapar]

I find the "well then just pay your taxes" answers to be on the same level of "well if you have nothing to hide...".

You can be a honest and tax-paying citizen of society and still get audited. There's always the chance that there may be a mistake somewhere. The US tax code is not simple. Even if you shell out $20-$80 a year to do it via TurboTax, H&R Block, whatever, there's always room for a mistake.

And even if there are no mistakes, simply being told you are being audited would make most people's heart skip a beat.

The article didn't quite cover what approach the IRS is using.. Whether they are taking already flagged people and getting more info via social network profiles, or if they are using social network profiles and using that as a deciding factor on if one should be audited or not.

The former I don't have much of an opinion on. The latter I don't like the sound of one bit.

[matthewmacleod]

It does suck, and I can't imagine anybody wants to be audited, and there can be mistakes. That's the cost of any government bureaucracy, I'd wager.

But I'm not clear why it's unsettling to use social networking posts—that is, public broadcast publishing by individuals—as a source of information. It's as legitimate as any other.

[ewoodrich]

The preliminary flagging process is done through an automated system that compares your return with others in your income bracket, as well as other characteristics that suggest errors or ommisions. I assume this would be one of many signals that are included. Besides, having your return flagged doesn't mean you will be audited, it just means a human will likely review it and make a determination.

There is no way I could imagine social network posts would be used as the sole or even as a major indicator for an audit. If it was, the audit success rate would be terrible, anyway.

[gamblor956]

The IRS doesn't have a system to track down FB posts or Instagram photos. It doesn't even have the resources to maintain its own systems.

Audits are randomly chosen out of several pools (i.e., corporations, very wealthy individuals, the self-employed, business-owners, every else, etc.) with heavy emphasis on high-fraud pools such as the self-employed. These pools are generated based on self-reported information (the much vaunted/feared comparative reporting analysis system is years from implementation). Due to high fraud levels, some pools (i.e., the self-employed pool) have higher likelihoods of audits but from the standpoint of the taxpayer, the increased risk is isn't meaningfully worse.

[yeukhon]

They always audit your tax, no matter what. I just got audited and boom they wanted $63 more. Whatever you paid this year, a few years later they will review again...

[sliverstorm]

There are different levels of audit. The "standard" audit they apply to everyone is basically a cross-check of your 1099's and W-2's, as well as a form check to look for computational errors (or didn't-follow-instructions errors).

When people say "I am being audited", they mean the higher levels of audit where they must produce extra records for the IRS to prove deductions & such.

[matwood]

Most people's taxes are pretty basic and this is likely the typical audit response. The one thing I would have expected though is we want $63 more plus a $100 fine for making a typo.

One thing that always bugs me, is that if the gov. has enough information to know you owed $63 more dollars they had enough information to tell you exactly what you owed up front and you could have skipped doing taxes and paying turbo tax or whoever in the first place.

[joshAg]

blame intuit for lobbying to prevent the IRS from sending you what they think you owe.

http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/27/turbotax-maker-funnels-mill...