Interesting set of priorities you have, Commissioner Shulman. You have committed enormous institutional resources to imposing a massive new preparer regulation and registration regime. You are forcing practitioners to spend millions of dollars and hours in pointless paperwork on pain of being put out of business. Meanwhile, you let actual criminals — in prison — steal millions by filing fraudulent tax returns:
The IRS has not shared prisoner tax return information with Federal and State prison officials to help combat tax fraud by inmates. … The Inmate Tax Fraud Prevention Act of 2008, signed October 15, 2008 and amended in July 2010, provides the IRS with the authority to disclose information on prisoners who have filed a false tax return to the head of the Federal Bureau of Prisons and State departments of corrections. The law also requires TIGTA to provide Congress with a report on the IRS
Tags: Instapundit, preparer regulation, TaxProf, TIGTA
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I disagree with you, Joe. I just took a fraud class last semester, and learned some of the fraud that prisoners had committed. They are almost in everything, first time homebuyer credit fraud, Katrina and Rita assistance fraud, etc. Amazingly that a lot of the first time homebuyer credits were prepared by tax-preparers.
If you play with a rattle snake ang get bit, can you blame the snake? By nature, rattle snakes bite. Prisoners are criminals and by nature commit crime. If these preparer knowingly commit fraud, maybe they should spend some time with their clients. I believe it is time to crack down those unscrupulous tax preparers.
Helen – I agree that we should crack down on the unscrupulous preparers. Unfortunately the new regulation system cracks down on everyone, scrupulous and unscrupulous alike.
I can’t wait to add my two cents to this issue. It’s getting ridiculous!