Glossary
Tax Examiner Terms & Vocabulary
15 essential tax examiner terms with plain-English definitions: the vocabulary you’ll hear in training and on day one.
Key tax examiner vocabulary
These 15 terms come up constantly in tax examiner training, on the job and in interviews. Knowing them helps you follow instructions, document accurately and sound prepared.
- Adjusted gross income
- Income after certain deductions.
- Appeal
- Challenging a decision.
- Audit
- An examination of records.
- Correspondence audit
- An audit by mail.
- Credit
- An amount subtracted from tax.
- Deduction
- An amount subtracted from income.
- Deficiency
- Tax owed after review.
- Field audit
- An audit at a taxpayer’s location.
- Installment agreement
- A payment plan.
- Levy
- A legal seizure of property.
- Lien
- A legal claim on property.
- Offer in compromise
- Settling tax for less.
- Penalty
- An added charge for noncompliance.
- Statute of limitations
- Time limit for assessing tax.
- Taxpayer Bill of Rights
- Rights of taxpayers.
Practice these terms
Test yourself with the free Tax Examiner practice test: it includes vocabulary questions built from this list. For a complete course, see Tax Examiner training.
Browse terms from every career in our career glossary.