Episode 1 Recap — The Audit That Started It All

Lauren Twitchell
Nov 21, 2025
2 min read

Audit After Hours: A Zero Fluff Books Mini-Series

Real Cases. Real Red Flags. What the IRS Really Sees After Dark.

Every IRS agent remembers their first real audit — not the practice scenarios, not the training simulations, but the moment you sit across from a taxpayer (or, in my case, a laptop screen during COVID procedures) and realize the numbers in front of you represent someone’s real life.

Episode 1 of Audit After Hours takes you back to that moment with me.

My first case wasn’t glamorous.

It wasn’t criminal.It wasn’t even complex.

It was a simple charitable contribution audit — a Schedule A case I fully expected to wrap up in a day or two. But it became the audit that set the tone for my entire IRS career.

The Case That Should’ve Been Easy

When I became a Revenue Agent, COVID protocols were still in full swing. Everything was virtual. My On-the-Job Instructor (OJI) was overwhelmed. And on the morning of my first interview, she didn’t show up because she’d double-booked herself.

She looked at me, decided I was “competent,” and told me to run the interview alone.

No pressure, right?

The taxpayer was polite. Cooperative. And confident they had everything they needed to support their charitable deductions.

But the documents told a different story.

Missing receipts.

Vague descriptions.

Inconsistent amounts.

A case that should’ve taken one meeting turned into a lesson in how even small errors can snowball — and how accuracy and empathy have to work together, even in an audit.

What This Audit Taught Me

Substantiation matters. Good intentions don’t replace documentation.
Polite doesn’t mean prepared. Cooperative taxpayers can still be missing key evidence.
Procedure has limits. Fairness doesn’t always feel fair if the paperwork isn’t there.
Your first audit will teach you more than training ever will.

And perhaps the biggest lesson:

Audits are rarely just about numbers — they’re about people trying to follow rules they didn’t know existed.

Why This Case Still Matters

Looking back, this case didn’t involve fraud or deception.It was simply a misunderstanding between what taxpayers think the IRS needs… and what the IRS actually requires.

Episode 1 sets the foundation for the entire series by showing how even the most “basic” audits reveal human error, fear, confusion, and the need for real education — not shame.

And that’s what Audit After Hours is all about.