No it doesn't really work like that. If you're selected for audit by the IRS then they want to do an investigation to some varying degree into the information that you've reported on your tax return. Not complying with that investigation or trying to obstruct it in any way by not responding to the auditor or doing any number of things to impede their investigation or just calling them up and saying send me a bill isn't really a good strategy. Number one if you call the auditor up and tell them to send you a bill then they're going to disallow everything that they could possibly disallow and send you the largest tax bill that they can in order to protect the interest of the government. By doing that you're cruising for a much higher liability than you're probably entitled to. Number two is if you have a complicated issue or if there's something that the IRS feels that is really there, for example if you don't report 30-40 thousand dollars on a tax return for income then yeah, the IRS isn't just going to let it go. There are penalties involved with the unreported income. There are penalties involved with overstating deductions and the IRS is not going to say "oh well if we catch you just go ahead and mail some check and everything will be fine." No. The IRS is about compliance. If you don't comply with the tax laws by filing returns that are inaccurate or if you're overstating things or understating things, the IRS is going to punish you so it's not something that's just as simple as writing a check and being done with it. You have to really play ball with the audit whether you want to or not.