The Protecting Taxpayers Act (S.3278) would "amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to provide additional protections to taxpayers," according to the official description. The bill was referred to the Senate Finance Committee. The bill is still a ...
The bill follows close on the heels of the IRS’ release of the Dirty Dozen list of tax scams for 2015 warning of of “dishonest preparers who set up shop each filing season to perpetrate refund fraud, identity theft and other scams that hurt taxpayers.”
First, a federal appeals court invalidated most of the regulations imposing continuing education and other regulatory requirements imposed by the IRS on tax return preparers (Loving, et al v. IRS, Civil Action 12-385 (JEB), U.S. Dist. Ct. DC, 1/18/13). .
More than half of all tax returns filed with the Internal Revenue Service are prepared by professionals. That’s a substantial number of returns, so it is sad to see the number of preparers who make significant errors.