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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 />

1-7

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