Audit America
The audit notice came in the mail, but the follow-up phone call assured me that I needed to have a full year’s worth of documents ready, as well as my computer available for the auditor to come and peruse our business expenditures. Since this was our state’s Department of Revenue, they were particularly interested in knowing if all of our expenses were legitimate.
My husband and I ran our business out of our home—and the nerve center, as I called it, was downstairs—with ringing telephones, white boards along the wall tracking truckloads of apples being loaded, with their expected times of arrivals, both here in our nation, and in nations overseas.
Since the birth of our second child, I’d moved my workstation upstairs—so I could do double duty as a mom and bookkeeper. This upcoming audit was fully my responsibility—since I paid all the bills, did all the invoicing, and had recently updated from the old-fashioned paper ledger system to an accounting program on a computer. We were truly a small business—but being honest is a big deal.
The auditor arrived promptly as scheduled and requested to have my office for the duration of the audit. I’m sure he heard the sounds of our toddler running around, and the incessant ringing of our telephones.
He tediously double-checked every single transaction—and how it was calculated to get to our “bottom line” of reportable income. Two full business days later, he closed his briefcase, and had my files neatly stacked by monthly piles on my desk. Audit complete. No problems.
I was hoping he’d find nothing wrong, but I could understand the reasons for the audit. We’d gone from a simple business model where we received a flat rate for selling apples, to purchasing all the apples ourselves and then reselling them. This shift in operations brought thousands of dollars through our accounting system—not our money, but it made our tax revenue reports vastly different.
As a government agency, their job was to ensure revenue reporting was done accurately. They were doing their job—just as we were doing ours.
So, I’m wondering why there are so many people alarmed with the role-reversal in auditing expenditures for government agencies? It can’t just be because of Elon Musk. As Americans, we are all in the same fiscally-sinking ship. Our nation’s debt must be faced—and should have been faced long ago. Knowing how money is spent is critical to success.
Our government is in the business of providing services. Many of the expenditures are legitimate. Just in the federal level of government, we pay over two million employees. In return we receive the benefits of using all the systems that keep our nation running.
As government agencies are audited, and no anomalies are found, then we should be pleased. If we find faulty spending, then we should eliminate it. We will not get a tax refund on our past expenditures for unworthy spending—but we sure can streamline operations going forward. And we must cut costs.
Business owners understand that minimizing costs, maximizes profits. Americans deserve to have an efficiently operating government to maximize the use of our tax dollars. The incentive to run our government as a business should be welcomed. Audits should be routine and the results publicly shared.
Audits are just one step in a marathon to fiscally get our nation back. Of all the things we truly can’t afford, it’s a nation in financial default. Global competitors (read: enemies) would win. Then we would be facing a far larger problem than just being broke.
