taxpayer advocate says it’s long overdue.
by 卡塔尔世界杯常规比赛时间 research
every year by legal mandate, the national taxpayer advocate, who heads the taxpayer advocacy service within the irs, files a report to congress. the report identifies problems within the irs and offers recommendations to solve them.
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this year, the acting director of the tas, bridget t. roberts, has identified the lack of a comprehensive strategy for the tax practitioner community as one of the irs’s most serious problems. although 80 million americans depend on tax preparers to do their civic duty, the irs’s efforts to serve practitioners is focused mostly on misconduct issues, not on helping them get the job done.
tax preparers may be the most significant force behind taxpayer compliance, guiding taxpayers down the convoluted pathway toward accurate tax returns. yet the vast majority of tax preparers are unenrolled, or non-credentialed, agents who have never passed any sort of competency exam.
the report says, “the evolution of the commercial tax return preparation and filing industry has made it easier for inexperienced and untrained preparers to enter into the business without having any knowledge of tax law.”
according to the irs, 76 percent of forms 1040 and 1040 with schedule eic are completed by unenrolled preparers. cpas handle only 9 percent of those forms, and enrolled agents handle only 8 percent. state-regulated preparers do 6 percent of them. attorneys, certified acceptance agents, enrolled actuaries and enrolled retirement plan agents take care of the rest.
since 2002, the nta has been recommending that congress authorize the irs to conduct preparer oversight. oversight would include
- registration
- testing for competence
- certification
- increased penalties
- better due diligence requirements
- taxpayer education on choosing a competent preparer
no strategic oversight: the irs, tax preparer organizations and members of congress have supported the oversight idea, yet not much has happened beyond the voluntary annual filing season program (asfp) for unenrolled preparers. those who opt to participate must complete continuing education requirements and consent to adhere to the duties, restrictions and sanctions relating to practicing before the irs. as of october 1 of last year, the irs had 60,000 participants.
no strategic service to tax preparers: the taxpayer first act of 2019 requires the irs to submit to congress a comprehensive customer service strategy by july 1, 2020. in that tax preparers are closely linked with irs customers – indeed are irs customers – the strategy needs to include those professionals as important stakeholders. currently, the only strategy focusing on preparers regards misconduct, which by definition is a solution that comes after a problem has already occurred.
the nta therefore has reason to be concerned about whether the eventual irs customer service strategy will include service to tax practitioners. the annual report says, “considering that millions of taxpayers choose to interact with the irs through their preparers, the customer service strategy would be incomplete without including service to those preparers. accordingly, the teams developing the return preparer and customer service strategies should coordinate to ensure both strategies are consistent and comprehensive.”
the right to representation: the nta says that the irs needs to recognize that taxpayers have a legally mandated bill of rights, one of which is the right to representation. the irs needs to work with preparers to ensure that irs employees “respect, support and vigorously protect this fundamental right as they develop and implement strategies and procedures.” preparers, in other words, are a crucial element of this taxpayer right.
the right to be informed: taxpayers also have a legal right to be informed. that includes the right to a detailed breakdown of fees charged for preparation and filing of federal income tax forms. apparently it is very common for unenrolled preparers to not provide upfront fee information. the irs has no strategy to ensure compliance with fee transparency requirements.
limit access to personal information: the nta says the irs is perpetuating tax preparer misconduct by allowing unenrolled agents to access personal taxpayer information stored online at the irs. the irs’s authority to limit access applies only to preparers over whom it has oversight authority – arguably the ones who least need oversight. the nta says the irs must place restrictions on those who can access irs online systems and information.
the irs now has less than six months to deliver its proposed customer service strategy. an inclusion of some kind of strategy applying to tax practitioners could have a profound impact on the entire tax preparation industry. will the impact be one of unnecessary regulation, or will it contribute to competency, honesty, and security? we will know on july 1, and then we will have to figure out what to do about it.