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Culture War Roundup for the week of August 12, 2024

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I imagine it looks more suspicious in an audit to have records (phone, email, etc.) that you performed a job but never got paid for it vs. getting paid (but only recording a fraction of what you were actually paid).

Wait a second. Audits mean the government gets to sift through all your communications???

I suppose they only have the right to see email accounts and phone records of your business, not you personally?

As best I know an audit has nothing to do with sifting through your phone and email.

In tax audits, more often than not they take your business records at face value. They usually are just checking that you calculated tax correctly and have support for your figures. You're in deep shit and probably messed something up badly if they have suspicions about the veracity of your purchase orders and statements of work.

In financial audits...yeah you shouldn't have records of work that you've done with no recorded revenue to match. Your revenue would fail something called the completeness assertion.

This is a thinly veiled ad for some service that tracks your location for tax residency purposes, but it looks like they can subpeona all sorts of things:

https://blog.monaeo.com/when-the-tax-auditor-subpoenas-your-cell-phone-records