The libertarian public interest law firm Institute for Justice is suing the IRS today to shut down the preparer regulation program. From the IJ press release:
Congress never gave the IRS the authority to license tax preparers, and the IRS can
Tags: Institute for Justice, preparer penalties, preparer regulation, Preparers, Shulman
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I wonder why they haven’t attacked similar laws in California, Oregon, Maryland and New York. Why go after the big fish when there are little fish to practice on.
Bless Elmer Kilian, of Eagle, Wisconsin, for filling out IRS forms on that venerable Smith Corona typewriter. Joe, what kind of typewriter does your firm use?
Joe:
While I agree with you that the underlying policy is unwise, I think this is a case that the IJ is going to find difficult to win. The IJ is going to have to show that there is no reasonable interpretation of the statutory language of 31 USC 330 (which gives the Secretary of the Treasury the ability to regulate the practice of “representatives of persons before the Department of the Treasury”) that includes tax preparers. Given that tax preparers HAVE been regulated in the past (as the IJ itself notes), I think it’s going to be hard to justify an argument that this particular approach is an unreasonable interpretation of the regulation.