YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE RICH TO BE AUDITED BY IRS

The following is an excerpt from an article that appeared in the April 2009 issue of Smart Money--it confirms what I already knew--"The IRS's job is to enforce the tax laws enacted by Congress and to collect what's due.  Its primary weapon? the Audit, whose use has more than doubled since 2000, to surpass 1 percent of all returns, according to the Transactional Records Access Clearinghouse, a Syracuse University data-research organization.  The increase can be attributed to the rising number of so-called correspondence audits--those done through the mail asking for specific information rather than, say, investigating  your whole return...One way to get the IRS's audit sensors tingling:  claiming deductions much higher than are typical for your income level.  We'd share them with you, but the IRS keeps that information under wraps.  What's more clear: Big charitable donations have been getting a much closer look...To protect yourself, get a receipt for any donation you plan on deducting, and keep those receipts for seven years--unless it suspects you of outright fraud, that's how far back the IRS will go with an audit."