The following is an excerpt from the ABA Journal article “Taxmen on Your Trail” authored by Sam Braunstein, published in November 1998.
Like the shadowy figures that stalk the hero in a classic old detective movie, the specter of being subjected to an audit by the Internal Revenue Service can give someone the feeling of being hunted down.
Ask any client—or lawyer, for that matter—who has been through it. No letter from the government, except maybe the one that used to come from the draft board, delivers the punch of the one that starts: “Dear Taxpayer: Your return has been selected for examination. You have 10 days to …”
It hardly helps to acknowledge that audits are a distasteful but necessary aspect of the enforcement process that helps give the tax system its credibility. As the Russians have come to understand, a tax system’s effectiveness depends on its ability to collect those taxes.