Audited, Seriously?

Just what you want to see, right? An audit inquiry from the Utah State Tax Commission arrived a few weeks ago and it has been sitting on the corner of my desk while I stewed about it. The audit only has one action item: Deduction for Adoption Expenses. My first reaction was to drive over there with Nora, find the yahoo that flagged my return and ask, What the Hell? I don't have time for this, here she is, do you think she got here on her own dime?

But I've come down from that ledge a little and I'll spare you all the rest of the content of my response related to my 2005 and 2006 returns and adoption related expenses for both YuYu and Nora and when they can be claimed for state and federal tax purposes. I'll just cut and paste one paragraph where I try to weasel out of paying the bank a buttload for copies of three year old checks:

2. Although the USTC audit form requests copies of cancelled checks related to the 2005 adoption expenses, I have declined to provide those copies. The expense of obtaining all those copies from my bank is prohibitive and would not provide proof of all expenses where some expenses were incurred by electronic funds transfer or wire transfer. I have, however, enclosed a copy of adoption related expenses itemized by my personal finance software program for your review. When preparing my response to this audit inquiry, I realized that the cost of our airfare to China (families must travel to China to adopt their waiting children, children are not escorted to the adoptive family’s home country) had not been recorded and the actual 2005 adoption related expenses exceeded the amount claimed on my 2005 USTC return by well over three thousand dollars. Obviously, an international adoption does not happen for free and copies of the cancelled checks would not be especially probative under the circumstances. I have also enclosed a photo of myself, center, my third daughter YuYu on the left and my fourth daughter Nora on the right. This photo was taken by our Chinese guide seconds after we first met Nora and Nora met us. Nora is the unhappy one. Nora is real and the expenses related to bringing her home were real and within normal parameters and copies of cancelled checks are not going to be more or less useful than the enclosed transaction register.



I sure hope its the last I hear from our friends at the USTC (and I actually have friends at the USTC, just not in the audit department), but I kind of doubt it. My tax dollars at work, blerg, to quote my favorite TV character.