AUDITING THE WEALTHY

Physician's

Money Digest

If your income is more than$100,000 (like 85% of readers), your chancesof being audited by the IRS are goingup. This goes for retirement interestincome, as well (eg, real estate, IRAs,etc). Tax audits of households earning$100,000 or more were up 22%in 2002, compared with the yearbefore, while the overall audit rateremained steady at 0.57% of allreturns. However, don't assume thattaxpayers are getting off easy becausethere aren't more audits, some taxexperts say. The IRS audit is just 1 ofmany tools the agency uses toenforce tax laws. The IRS enforcementkit contains many programs,including 1 that matches what a taxpayerreports as income with whatthird-party payers and financial institutionsreport on 1099 Forms.