Forum: money.stackexchange.com
Tags: <united-states><taxes><income-tax>
Title: If I'm audited, will the accountant who prepared my taxes charge me an additional fee to handle the audit?
Question: If I pay an accountant to prepare my taxes, and then I'm audited, is it typical for the accountant to handle the audit as part of the original filing fee, or will he/she charge me by the hour to deal with the audit?  I understand there's probably variance between accounting firms, but I'm wondering what the most common case is?

Answers:
sents: text: With the big nationwide firms (H&R Block, Jackson Hewitt, etc), they typically guarantee against calculation errors.
text: If you are audited as a result of their error, they will pay the associated fines and interest, as well as provide you with some sort of representation for the audit.
text: If you get audited for some other reason, you typically don't get any gratuitous services.
answer_details: author: money.stackexchange.com/users/1288/duffbeer703
score: 14
sents: text: I'm a CPA, and I would charge by the hour for audit defense unless the audit is due to my error.
text: The way I view
text: it is that I don't want a client to knowingly give me bad/incomplete information and then expect to hide behind the fact that I signed the return.
text: I'm here to help clients, not be a fig leaf.
text: But then again, most "audits"
text: I get involved in usually just require a letter of explanation to the IRS, usually stating somewhere "correct as originally filed", and they usually end up with no adjustment.
text: (That's the bonus of doing it right, and not playing the audit lottery.)
answer_details: author: money.stackexchange.com/users/6046/ExpatTaxCPA
score: 6
sents: text: Normally no, unless the audit was caused by their errors.
text: Some companies may offer free audit assistance as part of their package.
text: H & R Block does this in Canada if you use their tax filing software.
answer_details: author: money.stackexchange.com/users/1851/DJClayworth
score: 5
sents: text: A lot of the big firms and software programs also offer an additional audit "insurance" TurboTax audit defense is a good example.
text: http://turbotax.intuit.com/support/iq/Audit-Protection/What-is-Audit-Defense-/GEN12590.html
text: I would guess that any independent accountant would offer something like that as well.
text: If they don't offer it, I might consider looking for another accountant if that was important to me.
answer_details: author: money.stackexchange.com/users/5074/Pablitorun
score: 1
sents: text: As an accountant, I have to agree with ExpatTaxCPA.
text: If we made the error, our office fixes it free, and even covers the penalty at times (not the interest).
text: If it's due to something the taxpayer failed to give us, or something they misrepresented, it's only fair to charge them for the audit work done.
answer_details: author: money.stackexchange.com/users/20810/afi1040
score: 1

Summary of the answers:
Some companies offer audit insurance or offer free audit assistance.
Some accountancy firms, especially the larger ones, usually guarantee against calculation errors, so that if you are audited as a result of their error, they will be responsible for any associated fines and interest, and represent you for the audit. If the audit was not due to their error, they would charge by the hour. Some companies and software programs also offer free audit assistance as part of a package or additional insurance to cover an audit.