Strawman, much? The typical Revenue Audit scenario I've handled in recent years tends to involve a Revenue request to conduct the opening interview and audit at the customer's premises, a follow up request from our end to relocate it, typically to our own office, in order to avoid disruption to the day-to-day operation of the customer's business, the holding of the interview at our office and the handing over at that point of books and records to the Inspector for them to work upon at their leisure until they have concluded their work.
As such the level of actual 'fieldwork' is close to non-existent in most cases. It's difficult at the best of times for Revenue to conduct an audit at a place of business without having the business'employees, customers and passers-by aware of their presence - which can have reputational implications for certain businesses.
Revenue never, ever suggest, at least to us, that the audit interview and handover of records could take place at their own premises. They could save a lot of resources in avoiding having skilled inspectors driving around the place if they did that, at least some of the time.
I don't see how it's a straw man to compare two similar tasks; both being the audit of the records and returns of a business. If you want to argue it's a man of straw I think you should demonstrate how.
You'll be fully familiar with Revenue's published Code of Practice in relation to their various levels of interventions, including audits. For the benefit of AAM'ers who aren't, it sets out that it is their intention to conduct the audit at the place of business, and only in exceptional circumstances to change the venue. I understand this would be in keeping with general practice for statutory audits and for tax audits, both here and abroad...
It also states that irrespective of where the audit is carried out the auditor will normally visit the business premises. This is common sense, even on as basic a level as making sure it actually exists. I've never heard of the venue for a Revenue audit being moved due to "Reputational implications" - they must be particular businesses indeed.
I'm definitely not sure how a passerby becomes aware that a Revenue officer is conducting an audit in a business premises. They don't wear uniform nor do they have cloven hooves...
Revenue may prefer to have their skilled auditors out in the field, auditing as far as possible on site, where they can have ready access to any and all records and explanations. This seems much more efficient than having staff working "at their leisure" back in the office, getting bogged down in eternal back & forth information requests and correspondence.
If anything the protracted, correspondence-heavy audit suits the agent being paid to deal with it, much better than either the specific taxpayer being audited or the taxpayer generally.
Finally, since straw men have been raised, dragging T&S to tax inspectors into this thread is an epic case of whataboutery, considering they all have a very clear and well defined place of work in a district tax office somewhere.