What actually increases my chances of getting audited?

Illustrative — not a real business

The overall individual audit rate is quite low, well under one percent in most recent years, though it rises meaningfully at very high income levels and for certain return types. Specific factors that do raise audit risk include income significantly above the norm for your reported occupation, home office or vehicle deductions that seem disproportionate to reported income, round numbers throughout a return that suggest estimation rather than actual record-keeping, cash-intensive businesses, and large charitable deductions relative to income without matching documentation. Most audits that do happen are correspondence audits — a letter requesting documentation for one specific item, resolved by mail — rather than the far rarer, more involved field audit with an in-person examination of the full return. The honest advice here is not to avoid legitimate deductions out of audit fear; if you have the documentation to support a home office deduction or a business expense, take it — the goal is proper documentation, not self-imposed under-reporting. If an audit notice does arrive, the single most important step is not ignoring it and not responding informally on your own — bring it to us immediately, since how the initial response is handled significantly affects how the whole process goes.