My wife is starting her own self-portrait company. She will make money this year but I would like to deduct the start up costs. This will cause a loss on schedule C of about $5000. The only reason I would want to do this is that it would prevent me owing the IRS $750 and I would end up getting a refund of $2000. What are the chances of getting audited? I'm not sure its worth the tax refund if this risk is high with a audit headache. My own research seems like this won't be audited or very,very low risk since its the 1st year of the company and not much of a loss overall.