First the pros:

It is an easy read, that is for sure. The book is well organized and easy to follow. There are some entertaining stories which help to nail down the basics as well. For such a boring topic such as taxes, I must say the author does a very good job of making it interesting and keeping your attention.

There is a guide to tax forms and what some of the different lines mean, in addition to where you would take certain deductions.

There is some good advice on how to deal with auditors, prepare for them, what to do in case you get audited, and how to prevent audits.

A short section on how to find a good tax pro is a good topic.

Cons:

The LLC is completely omitted from the text. How a small business tax book can completely ignore this type entity is beyond me.

I’m not sure I would call many of these dirty little secrets. In fact, I did some research on the web prior to reading this book and found most of the information easily with a simple google search. The reason I bought this book was I hoped to get some more insight and detail about small business taxes and ways to work within the confines of the law to get more than just the rulebook interpretation, and to have a “Guide” to look back to come tax time… but it seemed like more or less a rehashing of basic business tax concepts that lead you to go to IRS.gov or to your tax pro for more detail right when you feel like a more detailed explanation would really be helpful. Of course, this would be at the expense of making it more dull and losing the reader. I get it – tax law is very complicated and open to a lot of interpretation. I guess I was just hoping that this guide would provide some more insightful interpretations and explanations. Except for a few chapters, it just read a lot more like an “Idiot’s Guide” to taxes than anything like what the description would lead you to believe.

Overall, it just felt incomplete. Despite covering a breadth of topics, I felt like I really did not learn very much new information. Many of the “Dirty Little Secrets…the IRS Doesn’t Want You to Know” felt more like common tax knowledge with a few helpful hints thrown in here and there. Combining that with the lack of any mention of the LLC entity left a lot to be desired.

Bottom Line: For someone with absolutely no finance, business or tax knowledge this is a good book to get started on learning some of the basics. For someone looking for actual “dirty secrets”, don’t expect to find many here.
Rating: 2 / 5

Rating: 5 / 5