As you know the IRS wants to require a license, issued by the IRS, in order to charge money to prepare tax returns. For the moment this requirement has been struck down by the courts.
Court Says IRS Lacks Authority to Regulate Tax Preparers bit.ly/13RV3v3 Love it! It is about time these guys over reach is reigned in!
— Marvin Van Horn (@FATCA_Fallout) January 20, 2013
I believe that the discussion on this is missing the most important point which is captured in this exchange:
My comment on “IRS Stopped ‘Dead In Its Tracks’ In Efforts To Regulate Tax Preparers” @forbes: onforb.es/Uc9xlA
— Alvin S. Brown, Esq. (@USTaxAttorney) January 20, 2013
@ustaxattorney @forbes Big difference between the regulation of preparers and preparers being regulated by the IRS. Latter is the problem!
— U.S. Citizen Abroad (@USCitizenAbroad) January 20, 2013
The problem is that that if it is the IRS that is issuing the license, then tax preparers will think that they must please the IRS instead of being fair to the client. It is like the problem of the lawyer who wants to put everybody into OVDP and the lawyer who considers a number of compliance options.
This case is likely to go to the Supreme Court. I suspect that the decision that the IRS can’t regulate will stand.
this from Patric Hale…
Another example of the timeless wisdom of our Founding Fathers, establishing the court system as a co-equal branch.
We’ve particularly seen over especially the past 4 years (no names…) how this administration has continued to grab power by regulatory fiat without the necessary backing of legislative permission. The 2,200 “Affordable Care Act”, for instance, has already turned into over 13,000 pages of regulations – and counting!
This is on top of a President deciding for himself with neither court or Congressional oversight which person, American or non-American, he wants to kill in a drone strike.
Moving forward, beware of any legislation that is slipped into omnibus laws of significant value to an undeniable majority of members of Congress where the final clause states, “details to be determined by regulators.”
Finally, the obvious: If the Tax Code were not so complicated, made so not just by legislation but the IRS itself – nothing in the FATCA law speaks to the actually complications caused by subsequent legislation – the entire issue of testing or authorizing, etc. would be moot! Consider this: People only turn to a tax-preparer if they can’t do it themselves! Let the IRS determine who they want to deal with and watch the Tax Code get even more complicated and the tax preparers more compliant and less willing to challenge the IRS, too.
This used to be called tyranny by our Founding Fathers. What happened?