You Can Yell At The Irs Man

Since it is tax preparation time for most of my clients, I thought a little tax story might lighten things up.

True Story: Some years ago one of my clients was undergoing a routine IRS exam. There were issues involving LIFO inventory, manufacturing costs, allowable deductions and the like. Routine stuff.

Now picture a long narrow conference room, with a large picture window running the length of the room. You have seen these hundreds of time. I am at one end of the table. The IRS agent is at the other end. There were four of my staff accountants, two on each side of the table, between me and the IRS man. Papers and folders strewn all over the table.

My client’s controller walks by the conference room, looks in, sees me standing up, pointing at some papers and yelling, literally yelling across the room, at the IRS agent. My client, looking in and hearing clear loud yelling, seeing me gesturing at papers and pointing at the IRS man, was panicked.

My client interrupted, fear on his face, and pulled me out of the room. He was very, very worried. Why was I yelling at the IRS agent? I told him not to worry. We had just settled the last issue, with no changes to the tax returns. He could not understand. How could yelling at the IRS agent get us a no-change exam result?

I would not advise yelling at the IRS man. Cool, calm interchanges are best. But not this time.

We received a no-change exam result because we had done the accounting and filed the tax returns properly. The yelling? The agent had asked me to speak as loudly as I could. You see, he had hearing trouble in both ears. He wore dual hearing aids and had a device to amplify sound in addition to the aids. He was a very capable agent, just could not hear well.

Needless to say, my client was relieved.

What’s the point?

You can yell at the IRS, if requested, but make sure your positions are correct.