> "Pay what we say you owe or we'll nuke your finances with an audit". Yes this is exactly my problem.
You might be misunderstanding in what an audit entails.
There’s no direct “nuking” of finances due to an audit.
In the vast majority of cases an audit is nothing more than “you claimed this on your return, can you please provide the documentation that supports it?”
More specifically, I believe most audits are about claiming child tax credit and them wanting documentation to support the claim.
If your finances get nuked that means you lied on your return, with very few exceptions.
Main exception that comes to mind is claiming expenses that are up for debate.
Also circling back to your earlier comment. Yes the tax code is needlessly complicated, Intuit et al. are the ones who caused that and are actively lobbying against simplifying it because their paid services would become obsolete if the tax code was nice and simple.
You might be misunderstanding in what an audit entails.
There’s no direct “nuking” of finances due to an audit.
In the vast majority of cases an audit is nothing more than “you claimed this on your return, can you please provide the documentation that supports it?”
More specifically, I believe most audits are about claiming child tax credit and them wanting documentation to support the claim.
If your finances get nuked that means you lied on your return, with very few exceptions.
Main exception that comes to mind is claiming expenses that are up for debate.
Also circling back to your earlier comment. Yes the tax code is needlessly complicated, Intuit et al. are the ones who caused that and are actively lobbying against simplifying it because their paid services would become obsolete if the tax code was nice and simple.