Every year there are several tax cases where taxpayers think they'll get a better result in court despite poor records. They almost always lose. I've got a short article in today's
AICPA Tax Insider on some of these cases, including a few involving marijuana businesses. I hope you'll take a look -
Poor Recordkeeping Hurts Taxpayers: Problems and Preventions. I don't think these are really problems due to tax law complexity because businesses should maintain records for both tax and non-tax reasons. Of course, where a tax rule requires records beyond what is required for bookkeeping or financial reporting purposes, that should be examined as part of tax reform. You'll see that in a few cases mentioned in the article that people were claiming deductions they were not entitled to, such as expenses of a car you don't own (including depreciation!).
What do you think? Do you know of any new apps or other tools to help busy business owners maintain proper records?
