IRS shows a simple way to avoid income tax audit

The tax gods smiled on me when they made me the younger brother of a CPA -- a guy who saved my butt countless times back in the day when I didn't know a tax return from toilet paper. Thus I've always had the advantage of instant, free tax advice when I need it.

Yet no matter how many times I asked Brother Joe about beating the IRS audit system, he was always pretty cautious, and 100 percent truthful. "There's no fool-proof way to do it," he'd tell me.

But now comes news from the most unlikely of sources -- the IRS itself -- that your chances of being audited are 1 in 100 if you follow one simple rule: Show an income under $200,000.