Debunking Myths

My long-time favorite site for checking on the accuracy of rumors and other so-called news is Snopes.com.  I have to keep reminding people to check there before forwarding any of the endless chain letters to everyone on their mailing list.  Most of those are complete scams and do nothing but further clutter up everyone's email.

You can sign up for a periodic update email from Snopes to alert you to some of the newest items they have.  There were a couple of good ones in today's update.

Fake work at home scams are among the most common spam emails.  I must receive at least a dozen each day touting the ability to make big money processing refunds for customers of FedEx and UPS.  I've never checked it out because it was obviously a scam; but Snopes has all of the details for anyone who is curious.

Among many other myths about how IRS selects tax returns for audit has long been the one claiming that using the pre-printed label that IRS sends you on your tax return will make it more likely to be chosen.  That has never been true.  In fact, I do usually stick those labels on the tax returns that I prepare and have never seen any correlation with IRS audits.  However, I do not use the labels if they have any errors in the pre-printed name or address.  I long ago learned that, even when I cross out and correct the erroneous info, IRS data entry personnel ignore my changes and perpetuate the errors.  The only way to force them to correct the data is to make them key in the names and addresses from a tax return without the preprinted label.

KMK

- posted by Kerry M. Kerstetter, MBA~CPA~ATP~ATA @ 4/12/2003 01:01:00 PM Send this post: