MF>        You don't have to make your auditors happy, but you shouldn't
 MF>        tick them off.  IRS can make things really hairy for you, and
 MF>        over a period of years, even if your returns are perfectly
 MF>        legit.
When we were audited I met the auditor at the door with a wide smile, and 
told her I was glad to see her, as I had some questions for her before we 
started.  She was completely taken aback, since she said she has very rarely 
had anyone actually glad to see her.  I made her a cup of tea (used the good 
matching tea set) and she answered my questions before we started, even to 
the point of letting me (and watching me) make an adjustment to the files 
according to one answer, before she "saw" my files.  Then, when she asked for 
each thing and I handed it to her, she actually said out loud that when she'd 
realised the company was a home office her heart sank.  She was expecting 
cardboard boxes of bits of paper, if records had been kept at all, but my 
labelled and filed records enabled her to do what had been expected to be a 
full day's work in only half the time (even with the time taken for me to ask 
for her help in clarifiying some grey areas).  Since she had been given a 
full day, we had lunch together and she spent the afternoon giving me some  
*very* useful tips on how to get better use out of my programmes, and how to 
make my record keeping easier and more to the point.  I used her as a 
resourcce, assuming that she had seen all sorts of businesses, and that she 
would know a lot more about the intricacies of the tax laws than I did, and 
how to apply them when the government instructions made no sense to me.  She 
was enormously helpful, and was pleased to be given that kind of recognition, 
and was most complimentary about my attempts to keep things filed in an 
orderly fashion.  We passed the audit with flying colours, and since then the 
tax department has accepted our claims without a murmur for the past two 
years.
--- Maximus 2.01wb
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