Annual Filing Season Program

[Bees Knees]

Getting a bit back to thread topic: The tax returns of my new client likely (and who can really, factually, say otherwise?) had a reasonably good DIF score. Heck, she may have even had a "better" DIF score with the professional preparer check box marked based on some comments made here? Either way, I doubt if the client's returns would have ever rattled anyone's tree in the IRS barring being victim of a "random" audit. I doubt if she ever had a bad DIF score (unless IRS perhaps IRS does a "redo" with crooked tax preparer factor entered?). She (and others) were likely put through the wringers not because of what was ON her tax return but rather because of who PREPARED her tax return.

Well, you just proved my point. I too can tell stories about people being audited because of who prepared the return.

But stop and think about that for one minute. If IRS in fact targets taxpayers who have problem preparers doing their return, wouldn't it also be likely IRS skips returns that have a higher likelihood of being prepared correctly?

The fact that IRS can and does track returns based on who prepared the return should tell you IRS does in fact pick audits based on who prepared the return. That means on average, paid preparer returns should get picked less for audit, unless of course you try to argue that paid preparers are more likely to make errors on returns than self-prepared returns.

[FEDUKE404]

Score versus targets

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But stop and think about that for one minute. If IRS in fact targets taxpayers who have problem preparers doing their return, wouldn't it also be likely IRS skips returns that have a higher likelihood of being prepared correctly?

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Only if you accept the underlying assumption that a self-prepared return cannot be prepared as accurately as the same return done by a professional. (Does this mean I'm somehow at greater audit risk, via the magical DIF score, for my personal tax return merely because there is no preparer information shown?? )

It is a virtual certainty that, if upon audit or even additional review of a tax return, the IRS sees something that might be indicative of a specific "preparer" problem then the IRS is extremely likely to probe further into other returns done by that preparer/firm, regardless of whatever the original DIF scores were. This scenario is what happened to the aforementioned "car sales" tax preparer.

This is an entirely different issue from the original discussion: Stating that BEFORE ANY AUDIT ISSUES ARISE a given tax return automatically receives a "better" DIF score, merely because it bears a PTIN number, than an identical tax return that was self-prepared. Possible? perhaps ---- Proven/documented? not at all

Two entirely different issues. We can speculate until the cows come home, unless some friendly IRS person "in the know" cares to spill those beans.

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As for my "story," there is little doubt my potential client's return would never have been targeted merely as a result of a DIF score, whether self-prepared or via a professional. It was actually quite clean, except there had been some funny business with the records presented to the (later jailed) preparer versus what was actually shown on the filed tax returns. My potential client was not audited because her return "appeared" to be bad, but because her preparer was. Her original DIF score was totally irrelevant, in all likelihood.

FE