How does the IRS target people for audits? The IRS does have a system by which individuals can randomly be chosen and for those particular individuals it's just the luck of the draw and it's not your lucky day when they randomly pick you. It is highly unlikely that you will be one of those people but it is possible. Other than that there are some things that you can do on your tax returns that will red flag you, so to speak, that will cause the IRS to look at your return a little bit more closely and ask for some substantiating information. So definitely when you're filing those tax returns you want to be aware of what those things are because if it does red flag you for an audit you want to have the documentation necessary to support those things that you reported on your return.