I do all the financial work for my husband's small business, so it's not unusual for me to get correspondence from the IRS. Still, every time I open the mailbox and see IRS in the left-hand corner of the envelope, I shudder. Is this the one? Am I finally... gulp ... being audited? Believe it or not, the folks at the IRS aren't a bunch of sadists; they have a valid reason for conducting audits. In 2001, the tax gap - the difference between what taxpayers should pay and what they actually pay on a timely basis - was more than $250 billion. The large majority is because of individual taxpayers underreporting their income or overstating their expenses and deductions.
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