Richcpaman Posted January 13, 2016 Report Share Posted January 13, 2016 My Client, a restaurant, received a audit notice from the state of Virginia to audit 3 years of sales tax returns, as well as purchases to make sure they paid sales tax on the right purchases. Anyone been thru one? Any tips? Rich Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gail in Virginia Posted January 14, 2016 Report Share Posted January 14, 2016 I have had a couple; interestingly enough one was on a painting contractor who is not even liable for sales tax. They did manage to find a receipt where a vendor failed to charge sales tax. Fortunately, this particular client did not shop on the internet so they only found the one item. Nonetheless, it was a pain. I also had a couple of retail operations get audited. I don't really have any tips except to be cooperative, and check what they find. Apparently, the state of Virginia needs the money so they are hunting for errors. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rfassett Posted January 14, 2016 Report Share Posted January 14, 2016 Like Gail, I have had a few of those here in PA. Never in VA. But PA is very money hungry and are turning over every stone looking for pennies. Heed Gail's advice. Cooperate and check the work. There is not too much gray area in the sales tax arena - but there may be some. They will be looking at purchases to determine if use tax should have been paid - at least that is what they do here. As Gail alludes, frequent internet shoppers are avoiding paying sales tax and not subsequently paying the use tax. The few audits we have had, none had a sales tax issue - they all had a use tax issue. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GeneInAlabama Posted January 14, 2016 Report Share Posted January 14, 2016 I had a sales tax audit here in Alabama years ago on a small grocery store. They showed me a list of invoices where the client had purchased 3 or 4 times as much beer as he showed sales for. The store closed shortly after that. A year or two after that, two men from the criminal investigation division of the IRS came to my office and read me my rights and then started asking me questions about the former client. Apparently the answers I gave satisfied them because I never heard from them again. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richcpaman Posted January 15, 2016 Author Report Share Posted January 15, 2016 They are probably going to wail on him for the Use tax. He buys lots of stuff online. Thanks! Rich Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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