Auto Dealerships - Audit Technique Guide - Uncle Fed's Tax*Board
Auto Dealerships - Audit Technique Guide - Uncle Fed's Tax*Board
Auto Dealerships - Audit Technique Guide - Uncle Fed's Tax*Board
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the principal shareholders to finance losses incurred by the entities, to finance loans and other<br />
intercompany transfers, to justify the acquisition of assets, to justify the financial maintenance of<br />
particular business philosophies, debt service and the maintenance of the business and personal life<br />
styles.<br />
To visualize this definition one needs to view all the business activities of the principal<br />
stakeholder, in conjunction with their personal return. Each separate business organization that<br />
has a separate tax filing requirement needs to be viewed as a "separate schedule" on the principal<br />
shareholders individual return.<br />
The best analogy that can be made is to consider the dealership multi-entity situation as on a par<br />
with consolidated return multi-entity situations. It is submitted that there should be a tax return<br />
created that transcends individual business organization filing requirements where there is a<br />
multi-entity structure and one or a few principal owners. The reason there is a need to fill this<br />
void is that some auto dealerships will not be forthcoming in providing the necessary related<br />
return information and make this area of discovery very difficult for the revenue agent. Divulging<br />
this information may "hurt" the dealership and often the designated representative will not freely<br />
disclose this information.<br />
With this knowledge in hand, once the necessary information was assembled, it would not be<br />
difficult for an agent to create a flow chart that serves the function of being the shareholders "tax<br />
return," with each separate entity taking significance only as a separate schedule.<br />
The agent would want to determine the relationship of each separate entity to the principal<br />
shareholder and create the flow chart based upon this analysis. Then from each related return<br />
obtained determine and list the following for each related corporation or partnership:<br />
Assets/Liabilities<br />
Gross Receipts<br />
Gain/Loss<br />
Capital Account [1]<br />
Retained Earnings [1]<br />
Paid in capital [1]<br />
[1] Remember, corporations and partnerships will set forth different equity<br />
information.<br />
For each related individual return list:<br />
Adjusted Gross Income<br />
Taxable Income<br />
As the agent completes this flow chart, a tangible pattern should emerge. The agent should be<br />
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