In this insightful episode, Tanya Akimenko shares strategies to prepare for IRS audits and simplify business finances. If you fear audits or lack financial clarity, you won't want to miss it.

You will discover:

- Why proactive financial prep prevents audit stress and boosts decisions.

- How to choose a trusted tax pro for audit support.

- What to do when you receive an IRS audit notice.

This episode is ideal for for Founders, Owners, and CEOs in stage 4 of The Founder's Evolution. Not sure which stage you're in? Find out for free in less than 10 minutes at https://www.scalearchitects.com/founders/quiz

Tanya Akimenko is a business finance expert and founder of Golden Apple Agency Inc., dedicated to helping entrepreneurs understand the heartbeat of their business—finances. With nearly 20 years of experience, she simplifies complex financial topics, empowering business owners to make smarter decisions, stay audit-ready, and drive profitability. Known for her straightforward approach, Tanya ensures that business owners aren’t just compliant but confident in their finances, using accounting as a tool for growth. Her passion lies in breaking down barriers to financial clarity, making accounting an asset rather than an obstacle.

Want to learn more about Tanya Akimenko's work at Golden Apple Agency Inc? Check out her website at https://www.goldenappleagencyinc.com?

Mentioned in this episode:

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Founder's Quiz

Hello, hello and welcome.

2

Welcome once again to the Start, Scale and Succeed podcast, the only podcast that grows

with you through all seven stages of your journey as a founder.

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And today's topic is one that almost no one talks about, especially before you started

your company.

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But it's a topic that almost every successful founder has to deal with in one shape or

another, and that is that fun little acronym, the IRS, specifically IRS audits.

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They are no fun.

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They add no revenue.

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They can take up a huge amount of time and energy and emotion and money, none of which do

us busy founders have any to spare.

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And so uh it doesn't have to be that way though.

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And here with us today to set it all straight uh is the one and only Tanya Akhomenko.

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Tanya is a business finance and expert.

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She's also founder of the Golden Apple Agency, Incorporated, designed to help

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entrepreneurs understand the heartbeat of their business, finances.

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With nearly 20 years of experience, she simplifies complex financial topics, empowering

business owners to make smarter decisions, stay audit ready, and drive profitability.

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Known for her straightforward approach, Tanya ensures that business owners aren't just

compliant, but confident in their finances, using accounting as a tool for growth.

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Her passion lies in breaking down barriers to financial clarity, making accounting an

asset rather than an obstacle.

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She's here with us today.

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Tonya, so excited to have you on the show.

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And I can't believe I'm saying that about audits, but this is really cool.

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I love, you've got a great book on the topic, super, super helpful.

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And I think this is gonna be really awesome.

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So.

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That said, we've got a little work to do.

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You the moment I mentioned audits, about half of the audience is kind of looking for the

skip button.

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They're trying to find another episode.

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So before they do that, hold on everyone, give us a second.

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Tonya, I've got two questions for you to open up.

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The first one is why should a founder listing not hit that skip button?

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And the second is why do you think we have such a visceral reaction to a topic like IRS

audits?

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Hi Scott, thanks for having me.

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I'm excited to be here.

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And the first thing is don't hit the skip button because you know, little things, little

information could save you hundreds of hours and money and time wasted in the future.

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But also everybody is scared of the IRS.

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IRS is the most uh experienced, the most powerful collection agency.

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I mean, they take away your house, they take away your retirement, they take away your

future even after you die.

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I know it sounds crazy, so.

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That is why everyone is scared of the IRS.

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And that's why every time someone hears an audit in the IRS, it just makes your heart skip

a beat for sure.

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wow.

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So you've got a book on this, Audit Proof Your Business, and in the book, you really

stress uh preparation before an audit.

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um And so starting like well before an audit has actually happened.

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Someone sitting there just going about their business today in like the chaos of what it

means to be a founder, don't get me wrong.

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What are some things that folks listening might not need to start paying attention to now?

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um So a lot of times it's the little things like, especially when you're starting out,

you're driving, you're looking at things, you're having business meals, you know, you're

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talking to people.

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A lot of times people don't even understand that, hey, in preparation of being a founder

and preparation of starting a business, you having meals and things like that and driving

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to places, all of that is tax deductible.

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It's your startup costs.

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So a lot of times people don't even realize it, but

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If in reality $75 and under specifically for like meals or gas receipt or something like

that, you can ignore that.

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But anything over $75 you want to focus on, you want to make sure that you have that

receipt.

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And with the receipts having memory loss, not memory loss, but fading, I call it memory

loss, the receipt lost its memory.

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I would recommend just get into the habit of scanning.

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taking a picture of it, whatever, know, and have it in a digital form.

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Yeah, yeah.

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And one of the things that I think is a natural byproduct of paying attention to some of

this is, and tell me if I'm wrong, but I think one of the best things that you can do is

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to actually get your financial world in order.

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And for a lot of business owners, especially when it's crazy, there's so much that you can

learn from that, so much you can improve for that, that...

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uh

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I think you could argue that getting ready for a financial audit, getting those things in

place is actually good for business whether you get audited or not.

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Would you agree?

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That is so true.

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That is the truth.

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A lot of people don't like especially starting out.

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They put accounting bookkeeping on the bag burner and it's like I'll get to later because

I got to focus on this.

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I got to focus on the startup.

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I got to focus on the scale.

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I got to focus on this.

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But if you don't have your accounting, your bookkeeping information, you're not going to

be able to make a good business decision when it does come to scale, when it does come to

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growth and things like that.

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And again, that helps whether you

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are going to get an audit or not.

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Yeah, yeah.

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So let's say, let's fast forward a little bit.

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Let's say um someone's, they're going 100 miles an hour.

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um They try to do everything right, whether they did or not, we're not quite sure.

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And that's what the IRS wants to figure out.

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uh What does that process look like?

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How does it start?

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uh When should we freak out?

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Walk us through.

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Well, I don't think freaking out is ever a good idea because it clouds your judgment.

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You can't make a decision.

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So the most important thing is if you are freaking out, give yourself a little bit of time

to calm down, to actually make decisions.

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But also there's a lot of IRS scams because people are so afraid of it.

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The IRS won't call you.

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They won't demand money right away.

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You know, they will send you multiple letters.

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to respond by lot of time by mail and then if you don't respond by mail, they honestly

they could show up.

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They'll show up before they'll call you, believe it or not.

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But the process is basically whatever you reported on your tax return, when you get

audited, the IRS is like, prove it.

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Give me all your receipts, give me all of your income, give me all of your invoices that

you collected and things like that.

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And then it becomes like a prove it thing.

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So you provide the information, the IRS audits it.

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And then they could pick expenses and say, hey, this is not a business expense.

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This is you trying to pass it as a personal expense.

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And then it's kind of like a back and forth.

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No, this is a business expense.

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This is how I used it and things like that.

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Yeah.

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Now, one of the things that shocked me the first time I learned about it is we're used in

the US to being innocent until proven guilty.

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But to some extent, that's not quite how the IRS works.

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So walk us through a little bit because I think a lot of folks coming into an audit space

would think, you know, I'm innocent until proven guilty.

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Is that the way they work?

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You gotta look at it from the IRS agent perspective.

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You know, a lot of time you just think about, the IRS, big monster, know?

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But in reality, there's people working there.

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There's a human being with a family and things like that.

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And to them, it's just a job.

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To you, as it's your business, it's your livelihood.

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But to them, it's just a job.

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And they have heard all of the excuses.

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They have heard all, anything you can imagine.

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They have heard it all.

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They've been lied to, been, you know, they've almost lost their jobs, some of them,

because they trusted a taxpayer.

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So yes, when they're coming into an audit, because of their already past experiences with

other taxpayers and things like that, you're absolutely right.

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It's not always like innocent until proven guilty.

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It's like, know, you're kind of guilty, prove it to me, you're innocent attitude.

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So someone sitting there, they're going through their junk mail, tossing it all out and

they get one, says IRS on the outside, open it up.

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uh What should the, you know, outside of not freaking out, what should the next step be

there?

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Should you respond to them directly?

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Should you call in extra help?

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What's the best approach?

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I always recommend because, and I'll tell you why, but I always recommend to actually work

with somebody else, have that middle person between you and the IRS.

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And there's a couple of reasons.

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First of all, the IRS law is so ginormous.

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It's so big and there's so much gray area.

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Someone who's like experienced in audits and understands it can understand the gray area

way better than you can.

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The other thing is people don't, a lot of times people don't realize that, but financials,

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and your money, especially when money, your personal money is tied into it, is extremely

emotional.

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And so when you're dealing with an audit, you are an emotional person versus having that

third person that's in between you.

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They're not emotionally attached to your case.

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They're focused on the facts.

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They're focused on proving the facts to the IRS.

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You're emotional.

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And because you're so emotional, you can't even put, you know, sometimes put two words

together.

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I've been through a lot of audits, sat with a lot of clients.

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I've seen it happen, you know, and when you have that third person, like I've stopped

clients from talking too much, from telling too much information, you know, because they

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want to focus on the fact, on the current tax audit.

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They want to focus on the facts and we're so emotional and we like remember why we got hit

to this point.

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We're bringing up other tax years.

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I'm like, no, no, no, we're focused on this one.

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Nothing about the other one.

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So it's very, very emotional and I highly recommend that you do get.

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yourself a third person involved uh for that auditor to be on your side to be the middle

person to actually protect your interests more and to get to the facts faster.

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How do we find the right person?

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Because I know there've been a couple of very high profile case, you know, there's the,

won't name names or channels, but very prominent news channels have very prominent uh

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advertisers will say, and there's a lot of folks who will take advantage of people who are

going through that experience.

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How do you find the right person that you can trust?

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Unfortunately, you know, one bad person sets a bad example for the whole industry.

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I totally understand that.

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But I want to say the goal is to have a relationship before you have an audit.

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So if you're having a business, you should really work with an accountant who can also

represent you in an audit because then you'll have a foundation.

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They'll already know your business and things like that.

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When you're being audited and you're looking for someone,

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to help you, that's a higher chance.

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And unfortunately, unless you interview them, know which questions to ask, things like

that.

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Because even what I noticed, you can't even really rely on the five-star reviews because a

lot of reviews sometimes could be bought, you know?

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So I think the goal is if you have a business, if you're a successful entrepreneur, is to

have already an established relationship.

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And again, that comes before.

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for the audit.

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And who tends to do that?

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So for someone, this is, you know, first time they've really ever thought through, don't

have a strategy for it.

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uh Their niece does their accounting on the weekends, right?

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She's probably not the best one to help support them through an audit.

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Who are the right people?

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Are there specific titles?

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uh What are the right kind of credentials that you'd be looking

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So even if like your niece does the bookkeeping on the side and things like that, you

should still have a tax preparer like a CPA, EA, or even the tax attorney, attorneys who

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specialize in taxes, CPAs who specialize in taxes as well.

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NEAs are the enrolled agents.

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They only specialize in taxes really.

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So you should have one of those people, even like when it's not during the tax season,

contact them during the summer when it's a slower period.

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and say, can you reread my taxes?

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Can I have a consultation?

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Start to build a relationship like that.

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Yeah, yeah, very good, very good.

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So going back to some of the stress that can be created in this, um when it comes to

communicating with the IRS through that, um let's say they're doing it themselves or

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there's something they have to respond to directly, what would you recommend?

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Let me say this another way, IRS agents speak a certain language and it is not founder.

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As someone who sits between those two parties, how do you see yourself translating

Founderspeak into uh IRS AgentSpeak to be more clear?

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um So like for me, I have a meeting before the IRS agent is usually if there's an audit,

they want to interview the taxpayer and I'm usually there.

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So for me personally, I have a meeting before the IRS meeting with the founder, owner,

business owner, and I basically go through it and we talk about what are things we need to

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focus on?

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What are things we can't say?

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What are the things we shouldn't draw attention to like other years that are not

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being considered and things like that.

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So the most important thing is like, because there is the language different is really

just preparation for it.

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Um, if you are doing it yourself, one thing I do recommend is never talk just on the

phone.

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Cause once you're in a communication with an agent or in person, but if you do follow up

with an email and get them to acknowledge it, because just like with any, anything else,

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you should have a chain of events like a

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proof of a conversation.

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If you talk to an agent and the agent is like, yeah, get this to me and I won't assign any

penalties or interest.

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That's not true.

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They just might be wanting to get the information.

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Again, everybody's a person.

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I've seen, worked with great agents who went by the book and I went, I and I worked with

some not so great.

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Again, everybody's human.

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So if you're doing it yourself, definitely have a chain of events, like a written thing,

because once the audit is completed and if you're not,

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satisfied with the audit, you can appeal the audit.

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But if you don't have those supporting documents, hey, like we had a conversation over the

phone, well, there's no record of it.

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But if you had a conversation over the phone and then you follow it up with an email, hey,

I just wanted to confirm, please confirm this is what we had the conversation about,

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they'll email you back, then there's your proof.

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Got it, got it.

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So that takes us forward.

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Let's say the audit concludes.

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Tell us a little bit about how audits conclude.

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Is it that you win or lose?

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Is there something in between?

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What does that ending process usually look like?

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So there's always a financial difference.

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The whole goal of an audit is to prove that you did it wrong, basically.

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So the ending is they basically give you your paperwork and say, hey, this is the

financial difference.

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It always ties into money.

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usually you'll have an amount due.

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There are a few cases, I've had them personally, where the IRS will even refund you money.

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But usually the whole goal of the IRS is to have an amount due.

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Your whole point, your whole goal is when you get audited, you want to get that audit done

completed fast and as little financial difference as possible.

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You want it to look like to the IRS that you're not worth their time to audit because if

you are, they will automatically open up two more years next, you know, as soon as you

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can.

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I've seen this happen over and over again, but

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Basically, once you have the financial, you either agree or you disagree.

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If you disagree, then it goes into appeals.

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And like I said, you need to have the proof of the conversations and everything you had to

make it go a little bit your way.

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But once you agree on an amount of the audit, you either have to pay that, can set up a

payment plan and things like that.

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Or again, if you don't agree, it's the appeals process.

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Yeah.

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So, Tonya, I've got a question here and I asked this of all my guests.

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I'm interested to see what you had to have to say, but for any founder listening today,

what would you say is the biggest secret that you wish wasn't a secret at all?

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What's that one thing you wish everyone watching and listening today knew?

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people think finances are logical.

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Like this is my numbers in and out that these are the loans, but it's really emotional.

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Money is emotional.

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Money is like a fingerprint.

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Even taxes is like a fingerprint.

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They all look similar, but just because one founder is okay with getting a million dollar

loan, the other founder is having a heart attack, getting a hundred thousand dollar loan.

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And I think this is biggest secret is everyone needs to understand they're emotional.

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and their emotions towards their finances.

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And once you understand that, it becomes easier to deal with in your business and just in

general going forward.

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Yeah, yeah, so true.

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Tanya, uh there are folks listening and um they either just serendipitously, if you can

call it that, got a letter recently and would like some help or more likely they're

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sitting here middle of the year, not tax season, but they realize, hey, this is something

that they have to give a little bit of attention to now.

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Where can they get a copy of your book?

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Where can they find more out about the work that you do?

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Yeah, so just on our website, goldenappleagencyinc.com, and I am an IRS-enrolled agent.

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That means we do work with all the states.

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So it's not specific.

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We're located in Jacksonville, Florida, but it's not specific to just Florida.

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We work all across the U.S.

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So basically just my website.

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has all the information there and everything.

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Fantastic, fantastic.

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Well, that is goldenappleagencyinc.com.

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We'll get that in the show notes for anyone who'd like to do it.

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You can check out her book, Audit Proof Your Business.

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uh It's available just about anywhere you get your books.

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Tonya, thanks for being on the show today.

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It's just a privilege and honor having you here.

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And for those of you watching and listening, you know your time and attention mean the

world to us.

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I hope you got as much out of this conversation as I know I did, and I cannot wait to see

you next time.

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Take care.