You get what you pay for, or so the cliche goes. The Tax Court today looked at a case where a husband and wife had two “businesses” and used tax software to prepare their returns. As Joe Kristan of Roth Tax Updates reported, the businesses were probably just methods of spending their own money. The Tax Court didn’t like that. The Cost of Good Sold that they claimed were for mainly personal expenses. That didn’t sit well either. So they lost their case.
But the IRS also asked for a negligence penalty. As the Tax Court noted, “‘Negligence’ includes any failure to make a reasonable attempt to comply with the provisions…[of the Internal Revenue Code], and the term ‘disregard’ includes any careless, reckless, or intentional disregard.” So the taxpayers blamed the software they used. The negligence penalty stood up.
There’s a lesson here. Tax software does a great job putting what you enter on the correct lines. If you have a simple tax return, say just a W-2, a 1099-INT from your bank, and no other deductions, software will do a great job.
But software doesn’t do some things. It doesn’t ask you if the deductions you’re entering in are reasonable. It doesn’t ask you if that medical insurance premium you’re entering in as an Insurance expense for your S-Corporation should be entered in on that line. It probably won’t tell you where the best place is (on your return) to take a certain deduction, or why it might be better not to take that deduction. As Roth Tax Updates said, garbage in, garbage out.
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