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How to Handle A Tax Audit (woo-woo + practical secrets)

I hope you are enjoying this blog series I’ve been writing with some hardcore business advice to support you in building your life and income awake, aware and on your terms.

If you’ve missed the prior two posts, you can check them out here and here.

In my last post, I promised you two important things:

  • the woo-woo + practical strategies I used to get my tax audit handled with ease — resulting in no additional taxes being due AND
  • the reasons to incorporate your business outside of tax savings and liability protection

Let’s start with how to handle a tax audit (or really any challenging business issue).

(Want to set up your business to minimize risk of tax audit? Our LIFT Foundation System™ will help you do that.)

First a bit of background…

It was 2007, I had two businesses running and I was a single mom. I was overloaded to begin with. I knew that my 2005 books were messed up because during my divorce we had hired a forensic accountant and he had told me — “Alexis, your books are really messed up.” Ugh.

how to handle a tax audit

I didn’t really know how to run a business. I had learned a lot about sales and marketing, but the business end of business? Not so much.

So when I got the letter from the IRS that I was being audited for 2005, I burst into tears and spent the next two days beating myself up.

“Woe is me, why is this happening, Alexis how could you fuck things up so bad?” was pretty much my mantra.

I grieved. I wept. I railed against myself. Then, I woke up.

I couldn’t afford to lose anymore time to past history and to fighting what was happening. I had to get into alignment with the truth.

The truth was, I was being audited. There was nothing I could do about that. I had to find a way to roll with it and make the best of it.

In the moment of that realization, I made a decision. I would use the creative energy I was expending to beat myself up and rail against what was to create more.

I created a practice for myself that still serves me to this day (and I hope will serve you now as well).

Each time I thought of the audit, I would ask myself — is there anything I can do about this right now? If there was, I did it. If there wasn’t, I would consciously take control of my mind and shift my energy to something that was in my control. For example, I would use the energy to create a newsletter, write an email to my customer list, or create a module for one of my programs.

With that energy, I built my 2nd million dollar business. Had I remained in the devastation of the audit, I would not only have not built that business, but I would have likely tanked the business I did have.

On top of that, I hired out everything I possibly could when it came to the audit. I found a new CPA I could trust and tasked my personal assistant to interact with the CPA and locate whatever documentation was necessary to respond to the audit.

I told my personal assistant and my CPA to please not talk to me about the audit unless they were giving me a specific assignment that only I could complete or answering a question that was only answerable by me.

By doing that, I was insulated from any talk about the audit that wasn’t absolutely necessary.

The end result? The audit cost me some money in CPA and personal assistant time, but I got a no change in the audit, which meant I didn’t owe any additional taxes AND I was able to use my energy to fuel the build-out of my 2nd million dollar business.

The perfect combination of woo-woo + practical strategies for handling any hard life or business issue.

So, I wonder — where are you using up your creative energy fighting against what is, rather than to fuel what you want more of in your life? And, how can you change that today?

Do you have your life and business set up to make any and all bumps in the road, such as an audit, easy to handle or will you be derailed from your creative heart work by the things that invariably arise when you are building an asset to support you for life?

With love beyond the beyond,

Alexis-Signature-Transparent_1 copy

PS — I didn’t get to the 2nd issue I promised to share with you — the benefits of incorporating your business beyond the liability protection and the tax savings, but this email is already too long. Watch for it in a later post.

PPS — Do you have our LIFT Foundation System™ implemented in your life and business yet? If not, why not?

The cost of it is covered the very first time you use one of our legal agreements, buy insurance, protect your intellectual property, hire or fire a team member, set up your financial systems or strategize your taxes. Not to mention the savings that comes just from hiring the right advisors for your business. You can check it out here: http://www.eyeswideopenlife.com/lift

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Read More:

“They Stole My Work” | The Truth About Protecting Your Work from Theft

Don’t Sign Your Tax Return Just Yet