Monday, September 16, 2019

How to Avoid Tax Audits by Incorporting Your Business

Updating my 10-year old post, How to Avoid an IRS Tax Audit: Incorporate Your Small Business, the IRS' own most recently available data (for tax year 2017), show that, for a taxpayer with $100,000 or more in gross revenue, the chances of being subjected to an audit vary substantially based on whether the business was operating as a sole proprietorship reporting taxable income on Schedule C of the owner's personal income tax return (1040) or an incorporated business reporting income on a corporate tax return (1120 for C corporations, 1120S for S corporations), with unincorporated sole proprietors being 12 times more likely to be audited by the IRS:
Sole proprietor:  2.40%

Corporation:  0.20%