Though the IRS is simply a government agency doing its job, many Americans have an anxious or even hostile relationship with it, often seeing it as an enemy. Getting a letter from the IRS asking for more information, or worse, announcing an audit, can immediately spike fear and stress.
In reality, there is very little that’s arbitrary about how the IRS operates. If your return gets extra scrutiny, it’s usually for a specific, explainable reason, and often relatively straightforward to resolve. To better understand what’s happening behind the scenes, I asked ChatGPT to help break down how the IRS decides which tax returns get a second look.
