Name: Navigating Common IRS Red Flags
Uploaded: 2025-01-20T18:35:48.882Z
Duration: 1 h 4 s
Description: Navigating Common IRS Red Flags

Transcript for "Navigating Common IRS Red Flags": Hello, everyone, and welcome. My name is Heather Price. I will be your presenter for today. This webinar will review some common flags that trigger audits and IRS correspondence. A little bit more about me. I'm an enrolled agent with experience in tax resolution and audit assistance. I'm currently a case resolution specialist at Tax Protection Plus. I assist assist tax professionals and taxpayers in responding to all sorts of IRS, and state correspondence and audits working to get them, you know, the best possible outcome. A little bit more about our company, Protection Plus, we are a leading provider of audit assistance and identity theft restoration services in the tax industry. ProtectionPlus partners with Intuit to provide these services to the entire base of Intuit accountants and serve millions of taxpayers each year. Alright. So we have a little bit of housekeeping. So I will be passing this over to Ross to go over that with you guys. This session will utilize polls in order to better engage with you with relevant topics and also to measure participation. When a poll is launched, you'll see it pop up in the lower left area of the event window, and you can answer that poll by going to the polls tab or clicking on go to polls. When you select your answer, the button will change color and it's automatically submitted. Alternatively, once the speaker has announced a poll, it will appear on your screen. Select the radio button for your answer. If you missed it on the main screen, you can still vote by going to the poll tab. Please be aware of some best practices for this webinar session. In particular, if you experience any issues, we always recommend refreshing your browser window. You'll also be prompted to take a short survey towards the end of today's session. We appreciate you taking the time to complete that feedback. Also, please be aware that a recording of this presentation will be available using the same MagicLink login. That recording or on demand session will be available shortly after this session concludes, and that MagicLink URL will be found in the email that you registered for this session with. This session is eligible for 1 CPE credit and 1 IRS CE credit. In order to earn that credit, you'll need to make sure you participate throughout the session today. You'll see the requirements listed on the screen. Please be aware that only the live webinar sessions are eligible for credit. If you meet all the requirements for those credits, you will be sent an email using the email that you provided during registration. Certificates are sent within 48 hours. If you don't see it within 48 hours, check your junk or your spam. And if you still don't see it, reach out to us at protax_training@intuit.com. Make sure to include the details of the training@intuit.com. Make sure to include the details of the webinar session that you're inquiring about so we can more easily find the records of your participation. A brief disclaimer. Be aware that this session was created as a snapshot in time. And in general, it is educational in nature and should not be construed as tax advice. Okay. I think that's all that there is for housekeeping. If you have any questions, please use the questions and answers panel about the platform. And, of course, continue to use the questions and answer plat panel for any questions you have about the content today. And let's turn things back to Heather who will tell you what that content is going to be about. Thank you so much. Okay. So let's get into it. So our agenda for today, common flags that can trigger IRS correspondence, some of the different types of notices and letters tax payer can receive. We'll go over some mistakes that taxpayers make when a notice arrives, and some tips on how to help your client, what to say, and how to properly respond to IRS notices and requests. K. And then we have some questions and answers at the end. Alright. So there are several different red flags that can trigger the IRS sending correspondence. So in this will this session, we will review how often taxpayers receive notices. K. Some above the line flags, below the line flags from the schedule a, the earned income credit, and child tax credit flags, things that can draw attention there. Schedule c flags. K. That's a big one for audits. American Opportunity credit flags, and lastly, identity theft flags. How often do taxpayers get IRS notices? The IRS issues 220,000,000 notices a year. That is a lot. 10% of taxpayers receive an IRS notice. Of those, approximately 2 thirds are related to enforcement issues, meeting additional liabilities and collection of taxes owed. I'm sure a lot of you tax professionals out there see a lot of these notices, whether the clients are calling in about them, or bringing in the notices that they received. Taxpayers who receive a notice need to take appropriate actions to resolve any disagreements or issues with the IRS. Always respond. We always want to respond to notices that request information or make adjustments to returns that we disagree with. K. When a notice turns into an audit, 9 out of 10 audits end up with a change to the tax return. Okay. Let's jump into some above the line flags. So we will review reporting all income received and reported to the taxpayer. That is, a big one that notices are sent out for, not reporting all income. Properly reporting self employment income, putting that on the correct schedule, and some above the line deductions. Okay. So we have our first polling question. So we give about 30 seconds to a minute to answer this question. You want to all make sure that you get this question answered and submitted. Tax returns that fail to report all income are likely to receive a notice. True or false? K. We wanna make sure we're selecting an answer here. True or false? Again, tax returns that fail to report all income are likely to receive a notice. True or false? K. Give another couple of seconds to answer that. Alright. We'll go ahead and shut that down. Alright. Reporting all income. One of the most common triggers and notices triggers for notices. They will almost always get a notice if all the income is not reported on the return. So taxpayers who mistakenly failed to provide all income documents such as their 10 90 nines, w twos, and k ones. It's usually unintentional whether they moved and it went to another address or they hadn't received it yet. Many reasons can occur where, you know, all the income was not reported on the return. They may not have been expecting that income document, but the IRS is thorough at matching reported income for taxpayers. So the payer of the income reported on those forms are required to also report that income to the IRS, and they will then compare that reported income to what was put on the tax return. So a mismatch is a red flag and will trigger the IRS to send an inquiry letter. And we will get into that letter a little bit later. Alright. So reporting 1099 s a. So this is for taxpayers who withdraw money from a health savings account or contribute money to a health savings account. Taxpayers who failed to report distributions from these HSAs is a flag. If they didn't report that form, the IRS will send out most likely a notice asking for the form. K? A taxpayer must always include the form 8889 in any year that a taxpayer or employer contribute money to an HSA or the taxpayer withdraws money from the account. K? Neglecting to include this form will result in a notice from the IRS asking for more information. This form, it figures the deduction. It also reports and calculates the tax on the distribution. So if someone withdraws money from an HSA and use those funds for qualified medical expenses, we wanna ask our clients about that so that we can include that. So always remember to include that form 8889. Okay. The next one here is properly reporting self employment income and tax. This is more common on self prepared returns, but it is, it is common. So using line 8 of schedule 1 for other income to report that 1099 NEC or self employment income. Income on line 8 of schedule 1, it generally does not trigger self employment tax. Okay? So income on line 8 of schedule 1 over $400 will be considered self employment by the IRS, which is taxed differently on the Schedule FC. K? So that income should go on the Schedule c. And if not, it will trigger a notice. So just something to watch out for. Some more above the line deductions that can create a flag. So the first one we have here is educator expenses. So this deduction allows teachers, both public and private, a deduction for necessary educational supplies and expenses. It only applies to educators teaching grades kindergarten through 12th grade. K. They must also work at least 900 hours to be eligible for this credit. So keep in mind, educators teaching, k through 12 only. Sometimes we see college professors or maybe part time teachers trying to claim this credit, and they won't qualify. So what happens is the IRS sends a notice to validate that that the educator qualifies. K? They'll, you know, validate that you work 900 hours and you teach for a qualifying grade. The other thing that they will check for is if the expenses are qualified and necessary. So if you see clients wanting to claim this one, just make, you know, make them aware of that and make sure that they're eligible. Okay. The next one, moving expenses. Only eligible military personnel who are being moved from to or from a permanent post are eligible. The deduction only applies to those expenses not already reimbursed by the military. For those of you that have been preparing returns for some time can remember this used to be eligible for other taxpayers, but there has been some changes over the years, and the deduction is now only eligible to select military personnel. K. Student loan interest. Student loan interest. This is another one that can trigger a notice. It can be deducted only up to $25100 on the interest only. K? That's the key there there. It's only the interest on the student loan that can be deducted. Student loan interest is not to be confused with some of the other education credits. We'll go over those a little bit later. K. Last deduction here for above the line deductions is alimony. So alimony is a deduction now that only applies to divorces that were settled before January 1, 2019. So alimony is no longer deductible by the payer and does not require reporting by the payee. Divorces before 2019 are still something to watch out for because spouses sometimes have a mismatch a mismatch in what they are reporting. The IRS does match that and will send a notice for any mismatches there. Alimony doesn't include child support or non cash property settlements. And a mismatch in reporting by the ex spouses will almost certainly trigger an audit here for this one. Alright. Now let's move into some below the line flags, such as schedule a itemized deduction. Some big ones are the medical expenses, charitable contributions, and business expenses reported on the form 2106. Okay. Medical expenses. So medical expenses exceeding 10% of the taxpayers' AGI, that's a red flag with the IRS. So this does happen where taxpayers have expenses that exceed 10% of their AGI, but it's uncommon, and they may receive a notice to validate these expenses. So just keep in mind while preparing that return, and it might be worth mentioning to our client to make sure they're practicing good record keeping, invoices, bills, receipts, proof of payments, things like that. K? A sign of potential abuse is when medical expenses or schedule a expenses in general, when they rise as income rises or there's a significant metal medical expense for someone who is younger and does not have a history of high medical expense deductions. And that's a common thing here, right, with triggers in general. The IRS looks for uncommon or unusual situations. So in any expense where we are claiming that we are claiming for our clients, if it seems unusual, that the client may receive a notice for that. Reporting 10 95 a's. A flag can occur if taxpayers fail to include the form 1095 a on their tax return. And then a that's a majority. If they have they had coverage at any time in the year, even if it's just for a month through the marketplace, they need to provide us with their 10 95 a, and that will need to be included on the tax return. Taxpayers who are due an additional credit sometimes neglect to include the 10 95 a on their return, which can trigger, a notice from the IRS. Also, taxpayers who owe an additional tax based on their year end total income and neglect to include the 10 95 a can trigger some notices from the IRS. The IRS does look at that end of the year income, compare it to what was on the 10 95 a, and sometimes that can create an additional tax due. Depending on the software of the return, sometimes, you can just your return will be automatically rejected during the e file if you did not include that 1095 a. Just another thing to pay attention to. Charitable contributions. So getting into the schedule a deductions, charitable contributions. So now taxpayers must itemize to claim gifts to charities. There is no deduction for non itemitisers anymore. Anymore. Also, cash donations are now limited. What the IRS considers a flag is charitable contributions that are disproportionately large compared to the income reported on the tax return. K. So what the IRS does is they track the average charitable donation by income level. Contributions outside of the IRS averages could potentially trigger an audit, and they will receive a letter asking for for proof of these contributions. So if you have clients with large contributions, you might wanna let them know. Make sure we have the proper validation and proof for these expenses. Right? We want to help remind them to keep their records so that they can be proactive with these sorts of letters that are becoming more and more prevalent. Alright. Employee business expenses reported on form 2106. So this one has had some changes over the years. Form 2106 used to, be for employees to deduct job related unreimbursed expenses, including their meals and hotels, airfare, vehicle expenses. This form was discontinued after 2018 after the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act was repealed and all unreimbursed employee expenses expense deductions. So now only the following groups are eligible to claim business expenses on schedule a after 2,018. That's Armed Force Reservists, qualified performing artists, some fee base basis local and state government officials, and employees with impairment related expenses. Some other groups that don't qualify, they're still trying to claim these expenses, and it does trigger a notice. Alright. And so a little bit more about that. So for these unreimbursed expenses, the expenses must be ordinary and necessary to the profession or business. A necessary expense is one that is helpful and appropriate for your business. An expense does not have to be required to be considered necessary. K. Another flag. So high even amounts are red flags. And, really, this can apply throughout the tax return even in the schedule c expenses that we will review a little bit shortly. So be aware of that. The IRS knows that most expenses do not total exactly $7,000 or $10,000. So the IRS knows that and can cause a flag that gives them a reason to maybe consider these expenses aren't being you know, maybe they're being ballparked, and they're not backed backed up by real expenses. So we wanna be aware of that, those high and even numbers. Meals and travel. Large deductions for meals and travel are always an audit flag. With an audit or inquiry, they will want to see that these expenses are valid. Naturally, the auditor will want to see receipts or a journal or appointment booking indicating the time and place and the amount of the deduction. So be aware when claiming those meals and travel expenses. Alright. Next up, we have earned income credit and additional tax credit. So some triggers associated to claiming these these credits. This has become become increasingly more common in the last couple of years. This category has had the largest change, especially in the way the IRS processes these returns and claiming these credits. I'm sure most of you are aware of these changes. Primarily, when the refunds are processed, these refunds are now processed later even if the tax return is filed in January. The refund can be held until, you know, at least sometimes February, March. And the reason for this is to make sure that the refunds and returns are valid. The biggest reef, reason for these changes is fraud, of course. Right? People filing fraudulent returns to receive these large credits. They're creating nightmares for taxpayers. So this helps the IRS have some time to better sort out these issues. Okay. So with the earned income credit and child tax credit, the current trend for the IRS to send out taxpayer correspondence is to verify quite a few things. The first one is age. Are they under the age requirement for that year? Relationship, are they your son, daughter, or grandchild, etcetera? Support, they'll wanna validate. Did you provide more than half of their support? Dependent, are they a qualifying dependent? Citizenship, they must be a US citizen or a resident alien all year. K? And residents, proof the child lived with you for more than half the year to qualify. Another flag is continuously moving dependents will create a flag. So different family members claiming the child each year, and the IRS will most likely send a notice wanting to look into that. You'll wanna watch out for it. It doesn't necessarily mean that they don't qualify. It just means that the IRS will most likely look into it and why that dependent, you know, is being moved around claiming being claimed by different people. Claiming dependents. Only one parent can claim a dependent on their taxes. Couples claiming dependents on their taxes receive a notice from the IRS as the government does match Social Security numbers, and it will trigger an audit if more than one person has claimed that same dependent. K? And disabled relatives, especially if it's the first time the taxpayer has claimed the dependent, doesn't mean they don't qualify again. It just means that it's something unusual, uncommon, or different, and the IRS will want to look into that. K. Let's jump into schedule c profit or loss from business. So this one comes up a lot. The IRS, as I'm sure all of you have heard, has really bumped up their inquiries into Schedule c's. In part as well because of some fraud, but there are a lot of letters going out validating information being claimed on the Schedule c. So let's get into it. So the first one here, for flags on the schedule c, 0 or low income reported for gross revenue. K? Excessive excessive expenses resulting in overall business loss is a red flag, especially if you're reporting a loss several years in a row. The IRS tracks this information over years and over time, and they know a business cannot be sustained with not only the low gross revenue, but reporting losses several years in a row. And the IRS may consider, the operation a hobby rather than a business if you're reporting that loss, over time. And, of course, those hobbies, they're not tax deductible. K? And, again, the even amounts for revenue and expense figures can also be a red flag. So even numbers and even numbers ending in 0 are flags to trigger an audit. Claiming the home office deduction. So home office deductions have a number of requirements that the IRS is likely to verify through an inquiry letter. Audit risk increases if the home office deduction is taken on a return that reports a schedule c loss and or shows income from wages. These often trigger the IRS to inquire further. And claiming 100% use of a vehicle. Claiming 100% business use of an automobile is always usually a red flag to the IRS. The IRS knows that it's rare for someone to use a vehicle 100% of the time for business, especially if there is no other vehicle available for personal use. So just something you want to be aware of and look out for. American Opportunity Credit. So because this can be a nice credit, and refundable, the IRS takes a closer look at it. With this credit, the IRS does match what's reported against their own data. They receive the data from, you know, the 1098 t's. So taxpayers can likely receive correspondence requesting verification of the information that that's not reported on those 1098 t's. Right? Like, the expenses for books, computers, and relevant supplies. The IRS is also likely to request verification for tuition and other mandatory enrollment fees. K. Returns will be flagged if the credit has been claimed more than 4 times. So the American Opportunity Credit can only be claimed 4 times, and that's per dependent. So if you have 2 students that you are putting through college, the credit can be claimed 4 times for each dependent. We have seen taxpayers attempt, you know, to claim this this credit additional years, and they almost always will receive a notice. Alright. Colleges and universities report amounts paid on student accounts to the IRS. So any mismatch with the tax return will result in a notice or inquiry for proof of the school expenses. Identity theft. So I'm sure you've seen more common this has become, not just in tax, but in today's world, unfortunately, fraud is becoming a big issue. So the taxpayer may receive a letter to verify their identity if they have moved, and the address on the return differs from the address on the previous year. So changes in the address may trigger a notice. This may also cause a delay in processing the return. And also, you can now, report identity theft for independence. So I've seen some returns that have had the return rejected because their dependent social was claimed on another return or even sometimes used as a primary on another return. So in those cases, we do wanna also file the identity theft affidavit form for that dependent to make sure that doesn't happen in the future. Alright. So now we will get into some common notices and letters that you can see from the IRS. So how can correspondence be sent to taxpayers? The United States Postal Service. Yes. The IRS will always issue correspondence through the United States Postal Service. By phone? No. The IRS will not contact you by phone. They will not contact you by email, nor fax, or social media. Okay? The only way that the IRS will contact you in regards to a notice or an inquiry or an audit is going to be through the United States Postal Service. And for most of us, that's pretty standard, but we do need to educate our clients, and make them aware of this because not everyone knows that. And I've seen unfortunately with, you know, a lot of my elderly clients with all of the scams going on, relating to the IRS. They will, you know, contact them by phone and require, you know, personal information claiming to be the IRS. And they're not always aware that the only form of communication for these notices and correspondence is through the United States Postal Service. So let's make sure that we are educating our clients on that. Okay. Common reasons why a CP or letter is sent out. So some of you may know this, but, the CP does stand for computer paragraph, meaning that the notice has been computer generated. That means an IRS agent may not have looked at the return, but these are increasing as the IRS becomes more, you know, modernized. These, the computer generated notices are willing out more and more. Some of these notices, the taxpayer may have a balance due. So just a reminder, collection notices on those balances. They may have questions about the tax return. They might require some more information to process the return, verification of the taxpayer's identity, notices requesting additional information needed or missing forms, Proposed changes to the tax returns. A lot of times that's, you know, from not reporting all the income that we've discussed before. So how that might change the return. And lastly, delays in processing the tax return. Some things cause delays or sometimes the tech the IRS needs more time to to process the return. So they'll just let you know that they need a little bit more time to process the return. So let's get into some more specifics about these notices. Alright. So the first one is the c p 2,000. The income and or payment information on file doesn't match the information reported on the tax return. So this could affect the tax return. It may cause an increase or a decrease or it might, you know, result in no change at all. But the notice will explain what information was used to determine the proposed changes. So the CP 2,000 is normally in relation to not reporting all the income that we discussed earlier. So say even maybe a w two was left out, a w two, a CP 2,000 will be issued saying, hey, you know, this w two was not reported on the return. This is how much it was for, and this is the proposed change that it will create to your tax return. And it does give you an opportunity to agree or disagree to the notice. The c p 22 e. Due to a recent audit, changes were made to the the tax return for the year specified on the notice and a balance due, is owed as a result of these changes. So after the information from an audit was provided or maybe a notice it wasn't replied to, the notice will show the changes, and changes in tax as a result of that audit on this notice, cp 22e. K. The LTR 12 c. Additional information is needed to process your tax return. This one has come come out quite a bit more in the last, you know, few years. Just requesting some more information to process the return. K. Few more common notices and letters, the c p 10 a, 12 a, and 13 a. So the IRS made changes to the return because of an error regarding the earned income credit calculation. So this is normally due to a miscalculation of that credit. C p 75, another one, the IRS is auditing the tax return and needs documentation to verify the earned income credit that was claimed. The earned income credit and the additional and or the additional child tax credit portions of the refund is being held pending the results of the audit. So your the portion of your refund that is from the earned income credit or child tax credit will be frozen until they, you know, validate this additional information for the earned income credit and child tax credit. Cp 3219 a. The IRS received information different than what was reported on the tax return. So this may result in an increase or a decrease in your tax. The notice explains how the amount was calculated and how you can challenge it in US tax court. So this is a notice of deficiency. It comes normally after that first notice, the c p two thousand, that explains why the return did not match their records. Still at this point, you can provide additional information if you disagree. And I'm sure a lot of you have seen these notices, and there are a lot more notices, but these are the most common ones that we've been seeing. Common mistakes made by the taxpayer. So when a notice arrives, what do most taxpayers do? They panic, ignore the notice. A lot of times, they'll try to respond themselves, delay telling you about the notice until maybe even a deadline that was provided had passed. And a lot of times, they blame their tax preparer. Sometimes taxpayers can look like this here, head in the sand. You know, they're scared. They're nervous. Most of the time, they don't have a clue what these notices mean. Right? So they're very nervous, and we want to help walk them through this and and make them feel a little bit better. So we'll get into some tips on how to help your taxpayers when they receive a notice. Alright. 1st tip, don't panic. Issues with the IRS can be resolved. Right? So the notice that they're getting, that's not the final final result. We can respond to these notices. An IRS notice is about a federal tax return. It will be about specific issues such as changing the return, and it may ask for more information, and it could also explain the additional tax that's due. So we just want to explain that to to our clients. And then each notice, it has specific instructions, so it needs to be read carefully. And that's really important. There's a lot of information on these notices, and they do identify the next step. So it's one of the most important things we can do is to read it carefully and even reread it as many times as possible until we fully understand, what our next steps are to properly respond to the notice. If we don't properly respond to the notice or to the, you know, correct area, they can get lost in the mail and oftentimes have no, you know, no effect that's that's positive for our taxpayers if they're not responded to and and read carefully. A notice may state that the IRS has made a change or correction, to the taxpayer return. Any changes need to be, again, reviewed carefully and compared to the original return. So you do want to look carefully at the original return and the notice and the changes and see what could have caused that change, and if you agree or disagree with that change. Now if you disagree with the notice, it's important to submit a response. We always wanna respond if we disagree. The notices are not always correct. Sometimes a mistake was made, but sometimes the notice, you know, has a computer generated inquiry that does just, require response. So we wanna make sure that we are responding to the notice. The written response should explain why the taxpayer disagrees with a copy of the notice and include any information and documents the IRS should consider. The response should be mailed with the bottom tear off portion of the notice, and it needs to be sent to the address shown in the upper left hand corner of the notice. K? You'll, always want to allow at least 45 days after sending in your response to hear back from the IRS. It can be sooner, but this is typically what we can expect for a processing time. K. A lot of notices will not require a phone call or an office visit. K? If there are questions, we suggest that you call that phone number in the upper right hand corner of the notice. It is always helpful to have a copy of the tax return and the notice when you're calling the IRS. This will help the IRS answer your questions, you know, and help you answer their questions if they need to verify anything from the return. And sometimes you can handle certain issues over the phone. K? You'll always wanna keep copies of any notices, with the other tax records. Also, any response that you do submit, I would suggest making a full copy of your response so you have that. Sometimes the IRS does lose information. It doesn't get processed. And, unfortunately, we have had to resend correspondence quite a bit. So always make a copy of what you are sending into the IRS as well and a copy of that notice that you received. And, again, be alert for tax scams. The IRS sends letters and notices by mail. The IRS does not contact people by email, social, or social media to ask for personal or financial information. And while that might seem obvious to us, a lot of our taxpayers are not aware of that. So it is our job to educate them on that so they are aware of these scams. Alright. So if you're interested in learning more about Protection Plus and what we do, here are some of our services. So we complete identity theft frustration services. Right? Completing those identity theft forms for you, submitting the appropriate documentation that is required. We assist with IRS and state notices and audits. And, again, we've talked a lot about the IRS, but the states, you know, have a lot of their own notices and processes as well, mostly pretty similar to the IRS. So we do assist with, responding to all of those IRS and state notices. You'll receive access to identity theft advocates and experienced EAs, CPAs, and attorneys. We have a great team where our only job here is to respond to these notices. And it is our goal to get taxpayers the absolute best possible result while responding to these audits and notices. K. These are the things and services, that we help with, and we're fully integrated with Intuit software and platforms. And you can add an entire team of professionals for just $10 per tax return with the firm level program, which is pretty valuable to taxpayers to have all of this handled for them. Right? So if your taxpayer receives a notice or an audit, you send it over to us at Protection Plus. We go through an intake, gather everything that's needed, and work directly with your taxpayer or with the tax professional if you prefer, on getting this responded to and handled. Okay. And we have our last poll question. Are you interested in use like utilizing Protection Plus for your firm? No, I'm not interested at this time. Yes. I wanna get started as soon as possible. Maybe I'd like to learn more or wait a few months before enrolling, and I'm currently already enrolled with Protection Plus. So make sure you select one of those answers. We'll give you about 30 seconds. After this, we will open it up for some q and a and wrap up. K. Couple more seconds here to answer if you are interested in utilizing Protection Plus for your firm. Alright. Thank you guys so much. I'm gonna pass this over to Ross, and we'll open it up for some questions and answers. Perfect. Thank you so much. Heather, not to put you on the spot here, but there was one question that I think is relevant. It's, more of your personal experience. Are you seeing any trends, any anything that's really prevalent this year that you think may be a continued trend going into next year? I would say probably our prediction is that the schedule c audits are going to become more prevalent. We've been seeing a lot more audits on schedule c expenses where, you know, they're asking for proof of all the expenses claimed, and that's definitely becoming more common. And just in, you know, reading some of the updates that the IRS has put out, they've made it, more known that those schedule c audits will become more and more prevalent. Perfect. Thank you so much. Yeah. We'll turn to q and a here. I will mention, that if you are interested in learning more, we do have a session kind of along those lines of what the future may hold. It's called the future of audits. It may be available live. It may be available on demand or both. You'll find that on our webinar platform if you want to, kind of discover a little bit more about what the future may hold when it comes to these audits audits and notices. One thing I did wanna mention, because I know there were some very specific questions out there about, notices and audits and that type of thing, I wanted and I probably should have made clear at the beginning when we're doing housekeeping that, while we can talk about general red flags, general trends, and and things that can cause these notices and audits on a return, we weren't gonna be able today, and we can't provide specific advice to what's happening on one of your clients' returns. Right? We're not able to provide tax advice. But what I will say is if you have questions like that, first of all, it's gonna help if you enroll in protection plus because they're gonna be able to assist with that resolution service. And secondly, if you're just wanting to ask to figure out what your next step should be, I'd encourage you to check out the accountants community. I'll put the URL, the link, and the handouts there for the community so you can go ask questions and learn more about these situations. But, again, another quick, plus for protection plus is that they're gonna be able to help you as well. Let me take a look at some of these questions and answers. You've been submitting these throughout the session. So just a quick note. And, yeah, this is a good one. You can still we talked about the most common red flags. Right? Things that are really gonna trigger, or will most likely trigger something with the IRS. That doesn't mean this is an exhaustive list. And so, yes, there are gonna be other things that can trigger it. In fact, you may not know. It may not have to be a red flag to trigger a notice or an audit. Again, another benefit of using Protection Plus at the firm level because all of your clients are covered, not just those clients with the common red flags. Oh, we talked about how the IRS was gonna get in touch, and someone this was more of a comment than a question, but I appreciate it. A very common scam right now is people calling, pretending to be the IRS, and they're wanting clients to pay with prepaid gift cards. Important to let your clients know that that is never going to be something the IRS does. No one does it. No one legitimate wants gift cards for payment. If you help educate your clients about that, that goes a long way, especially for some of your more more vulnerable clients that may be more likely to, you know, run to the store and buy those gift cards for someone that is threatening them and telling them that's how payment needs to be made. This one just came in. Who contacts Protection Plus if there is a notice on audit? It's up to you. If you wanna reach out on behalf of your client, you can reach out to protection plus to start, a case to open a case with protection plus, or you can provide that information to your client directly. And that way your client would work directly with protection plus. So if you want to be more hands on, you can. If you want it to be more of a service, your clients engage with Protection Plus directly, you can do that as well. Let me go through here and just see if there's any other burning questions. Again, feel free to still use q and a. I may not call it out, but I'll try to answer it before we wrap up here. Let's see. Oh, we're talking about identity theft restoration. As a quick call out to that, for protection plus, when you utilize protection plus, everyone on the return is covered, and that coverage is going to be 1 year after the return is filed and that you've paid the fee to cover that return. So after that fee has been paid, coverage would kick in. That covers dependents, taxpayers, spouse, and that's going to cover things like, you know, reaching out to parties, placing phone calls, those notifications, documentation on client's behalf, essentially being that expert behind the scenes that is going to assist them. And if you've ever had to deal with identity theft, having someone who knows their stuff, who can be listen. I know it's stressful. I know this is not a good time in your life right now to have to be dealing with this. I know what to do. I know what needs to be done. I've handled this before. Having that expert, that really trusted adviser, that person in your corner that can help resolve this as quickly as possible is a huge, huge benefit. Great great peace of mind there just having someone that is, like I said, an expert in your corner. So keep that in mind as well. Besides that, I think it's about time to wrap up. I know I did see a few more questions come in. I'll try my best to answer those here, in chat just by typing them in. If you are interested in Protection Plus, if you would like to learn more, there's also a link in the handout where you can fill in your information if you'd like us to reach out and tell you a little bit more, make sure it's a good fit for your firm when it comes to offering firm level protection plus for all of your clients. Besides that, thank you all so much for attending this session today. On behalf of Heather and myself and everyone behind the scenes here, we appreciate you asking questions, being engaged, and learning more about common IRS red flags. Until next time. Bye for now.