Sales Tax Audit Guide for Florida Vacation Rental and Airbnb Hosts
Slug: /sales-tax-audit-guide-florida-vacation-rental-airbnb-hosts/ | Category: Industry, Vacation Rentals, Before an Audit Vacation rental hosts are some of the most exposed taxpayers I’ve worked with, and it’s rarely because they’re trying to cut corners. It’s because the tax structure on a Florida short-term rental is genuinely more complicated than most owners are told when they list their first property, […]
AI Is Now Finding Unregistered Vacation Rentals in Florida — Here’s What That Means for You
Slug: /ai-finding-unregistered-vacation-rentals-florida/ | Category: AI in Tax Enforcement, Vacation Rentals, Before an Audit For years, a short-term rental that stayed off the county’s radar was mostly a matter of luck. Manual code enforcement meant a real person had to stumble onto a listing, and with thousands of properties scattered across dozens of platforms, a lot of hosts […]
How to Self-Audit Your Sales Tax Exemption Certificates Before FDOR Does
Slug: /self-audit-sales-tax-exemption-certificates-florida/ | Category: Sales Tax Audit, Exemption Certificates, Before an Audit Every exemption certificate you accept is a bet. You’re betting that the paperwork in your file will hold up months or years later, in front of an auditor who wasn’t in the room when the sale happened. Most business owners don’t think about it that […]
Sales Tax Audit Guide for Florida Restaurants and Bars
Restaurants, bars, and lounges are some of the most frequently audited businesses in Florida, and it isn’t random. The industry runs almost entirely on point-of-sale systems, cash still moves through the register more than in most other retail settings, and the tax treatment of what’s being sold — food, alcohol, mixed drinks, catering, delivery — […]
What “Audit Representation” Actually Includes — A Behind-the-Scenes Look
Clients hire me for “audit representation” all the time, and I’ve noticed most of them have only a rough idea of what that phrase actually means day to day. They know it means they won’t be sitting across from the auditor alone. Beyond that, the specifics are usually a blank. That’s fair. From the outside, […]
Why You Should Never Talk to an FDOR Auditor Without Representation Present
Almost every audit I represented while at the Florida Department of Revenue started the same way. I’d call the business owner, introduce myself, and ask a few routine opening questions. And almost every time, the owner answered every single one of them — fully, cooperatively, sometimes eagerly — without asking who I was on the […]
Inside the Auditor’s Playbook: How FDOR Selects Businesses for Audit
People assume audit selection is random, or worse, that it’s driven by an anonymous tip or a disgruntled ex-employee. In thirty years on both sides of the table, I’ve seen those things happen exactly a handful of times. The truth is far less dramatic and far more systematic. Florida DOR doesn’t wake up one morning […]
10 Red Flags a Former FDOR Auditor Looks for Before an Audit Even Starts
Every auditor develops a mental checklist within the first few years on the job. Mine came from Deloitte & Touche, the IRS, and finally the Florida Department of Revenue, where I spent years on the other side of the table before I ever represented a taxpayer. That checklist doesn’t disappear once you stop being an […]
What Is a Pre-Audit Readiness Review, and Does Your Business Need One?
I get some version of this question almost every time I bring up a Compliance Readiness Review with a business owner: “If I haven’t gotten an audit notice, why would I pay someone to go looking for problems?” It’s a fair question. Here’s the honest answer. A readiness review doesn’t exist to find problems for […]
How My Background as an FDOR Auditor Shapes All Three Phases of My Practice
People sometimes ask why I structure my practice around three distinct services — a readiness review before an audit, representation during one, and a follow-up review after — instead of just offering “audit help” and leaving it at that. The honest answer is that the three-phase approach isn’t a marketing structure. It’s how I actually […]