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Tax Preparer Compliance


mcb39

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These are only the first two paragraphs.

IR-2009-57, June 4, 2009

WASHINGTON — IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman announced today that by the end of 2009, he will propose a comprehensive set of recommendations to help the Internal Revenue Service better leverage the tax return preparer community with the twin goals of increasing taxpayer compliance and ensuring uniform and high ethical standards of conduct for tax preparers.

Some of the potential recommendations could focus on a new model for the regulation of tax return preparers; service and outreach for return preparers; education and training of return preparers; and enforcement related to return preparer misconduct. The Commissioner will submit recommendations to the Treasury Secretary and the President by the end of the year.

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How much time are they going to give us to comply. I'm afraid IRS will state it on 12/31/09 and we will have to comply by 1/1/10 for that tax year. Just some more stuff to make tax season fun. I am not an EA.

IR-2009-57, IRS Launches Tax Return Preparer Review; Recommendations to Improve Compliance Expected by Year End

www.irs.gov/newsroom/article

I am not an EA either. My only credentials are 30 some years of experience.

They threaten this every other year or so. If push comes to shove, I will hang it up.........

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These are only the first two paragraphs.

IR-2009-57, June 4, 2009

WASHINGTON — IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman announced today that by the end of 2009, he will propose a comprehensive set of recommendations to help the Internal Revenue Service better leverage the tax return preparer community with the twin goals of increasing taxpayer compliance and ensuring uniform and high ethical standards of conduct for tax preparers.

Some of the potential recommendations could focus on a new model for the regulation of tax return preparers; service and outreach for return preparers; education and training of return preparers; and enforcement related to return preparer misconduct. The Commissioner will submit recommendations to the Treasury Secretary and the President by the end of the year.

Translation - A lot of paper, time, and our tax money will be wasted and nothing of any substance will happen.

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I would be in favor of a plan that requires all taxpayers to use regulated preparers. Say every taxpayer receives a print out of the reported items and facts on file with the IRS, if the taxpayer agrees, check the box and it is over. Otherwise, the taxpayer uses a regulated preparer to file the tax return. The regulated preparer would be required to maintain all the necessary documentation for the preparation of the return.

In such a system, the IRS could "audit" a preparer per se, and search for non-filers, thereby, reducing the necessity of such a large IRS workforce. This would reduce the size of the IRS by a factor of X. Compliance should increase by a factor of Y. Collections, at least initially, should go up by a factor of Q.

I know the idea needs to be flushed out.

Most likely this will not happen.

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<<Say every taxpayer receives a print out of the reported items and facts on file with the IRS, if the taxpayer agrees, check the box and it is over.>>

The majority of taxpayers would love this idea. They would feel that they wouldn't have to report the income that isn't on the IRS records.

They could omit all income from self-employment unless there was a 1099 and make sure they deducted all business expense. This is what is known as tax simplification.

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>>ensuring uniform and high ethical standards of conduct for tax preparers<<

In my opinion, the mark of a professional is high ethical standards of conduct. Our industry is dominated by a chain store clerical image on one hand and a secretive accountant's loophole mentality on the other, both of which serve us and our clients poorly. We are no different from other businesses--if we can't get it together to regulate ourselves, the public has every right to ask the IRS for help.

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I would be in favor of a plan that requires all taxpayers to use regulated preparers. Say every taxpayer receives a print out of the reported items and facts on file with the IRS, if the taxpayer agrees, check the box and it is over. Otherwise, the taxpayer uses a regulated preparer to file the tax return. The regulated preparer would be required to maintain all the necessary documentation for the preparation of the return.

In such a system, the IRS could "audit" a preparer per se, and search for non-filers, thereby, reducing the necessity of such a large IRS workforce. This would reduce the size of the IRS by a factor of X. Compliance should increase by a factor of Y. Collections, at least initially, should go up by a factor of Q.

What a truly horrid idea! So the preparers become unpaid 'auditors' for the IRS, and are required to maintain the client's records as well. And thus requiring the preparers to look at all the records, because the validity of the documentation now becomes the preparers responsibility, rather than the taxpayer's. Those client's who have decent sets of books would really love to pay for that now, wouldn't they?

And, too, under that plan, those of us who decide to retire rather than play under those rules would then have to pay someone else to prepare out own returns and maintain our records. Thank God that will never be passed.

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>>Obama is doing all kinds of weird things lately<<

He sure is! Why just this morning he stood up to the A.M.A.--how weird is that? Like, nobody in the world has ever done it before. The way Obama talks about reform, it's hard to ignore the fact that EVERY other industrial nation in the world, including some very anti-socialist ones, protects the health of their citizens.

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Yeah, which is why people from every other country head to the USA when they need the best, most up-to-date medical treatments. Where will they [and we] go once our system turns into the same sort of over-burdened, under-funded mess that the majority of those countries have? One of the reasons that we have all these wonderful new treatments and medical tools is because we pay for them. Compare the average local hospital to the average VA hospital, and think long and hard about why the local one is almost always much better.

Sure our current system loses some between the cracks. But the truth is that in countries with socialized medicine, that still happens. And, in fact, it always will, because human beings are going to make mistakes sometimes. But the socialized medicine countries actually PLAN some of those failures, when they simply set age limits over which you can not get certain treatments, no matter how much you need them, for example.

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National Health Care, really scares me. Our retirement board has been talking about a new health insurance for us for some time, they also have told us Yes we can keep the same plan we have always had, so no problem right. Well the new Insurance was very interesting. We had to go only to the doctors and hospitals on the list, and our primary doctor had complete control. Well the list only had 1 of our many doctors on it, and our hospital (only one with in 200 miles) was not even on it. Not to bad, we could keep what we have always had, RIGHT at a cost of $400 more a month. After some frantic checking and calling we did end up with the AARP Medicare supplement. But that may not be around long if President has his way. I think this situation is just a sample of what everyone can expect, with Obama's plan. What really shocked me about his speech was all the applause he got, all the way through. If he can sell the AMA, it will probably happen. He can sure make anything sound good, but he is not good at keeping his promises.

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And what about someone dealing with the drug companies? That would be nice, too. Medical costs are forcing our senior citizens to continue to work whether they want to or not. I just happen to want to, but I would like to spend some of my cash on other things other than medical copays and drugs. I called the pharmacy this AM from work to find out if my script was ready. Pharmacist told me it was and would be $340.12 for 90 pills (3 months worth). I said, "No way, I cannot afford that, even if the pills are doing a fine job of keeping my cholesterol down!" Because my Dr had tipped me off, I asked how much it would cost for 10 mg pills instead of 5; same brand, same drug. Believe it or not, it cost me $2 more for 45 10 mg pills than it did for 45 5mg. 45 pills cut in half equals 90 pills for half the price of the original 90. Figure that one out......it is a no brainer and I have enough pills until I see Doc again and can wheedle him out of some more samples or a script for something else. (Venting over)!!!!! :angry:

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>>the average VA hospital<<

I don't know what "average" is, but I reckon that means some are better than others same as private facilities. I can personally vouch for the VA hospital in Palo Alto, in which I spent a lovely 8 hours just last Wednesday. There are certain things in which they have far more experience than everybody else put together, and as it happened I was in need of that very thing. But I was not only absolutely and totally satisfied with their technical skills, I was overwhelmed by the hospitality and friendliness of the entire staff from reception to recovery. If that is the model of government health care, you need not worry.

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My husband had the same "good" experience with a VA hospital here in WI that is affiliated with the State University. Of course, it is hardly ever all good and almost anyone who has ever been in any hospital complains about something. Government or non-government has nothing to do with it. IMO

PS...we sure did get off the subject on this thread

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I agree with jainen, provided you don't think you need to worry about HIV, hepatitis, etc when getting simple endoscopic procedures such as colonoscopies.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/194/story/783113.html

It seems to me that I have seen similar articles about private hospitals lately, and the importance of reminding your health care professionals to wash their hands before they touch you. A cousin of mine died from a perforated intestine after a routine colonoscopy at a private hospital - I don't see how he could have been any worse off at the VA hospital that we have here. My father-in-law goes there for routine care and prescriptions, and they have been wonderful to him. I don't really think that the VA hospitals make a very good argument against government health care.

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I agree with jainen, provided you don't think you need to worry about HIV, hepatitis, etc when getting simple endoscopic procedures such as colonoscopies.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/194/story/783113.html

Or the fact that a very good friend of ours would be DEAD right now if he lived in Britain -- he had an aggressive form of kidney cancer. A type that, in the UK, the treatment is they pat you on the head and send you home to get your papers in order. Insurance didn't cover all his care -- but the family held fund-raisers, and, most importantly, HE IS ALIVE TODAY.

If we get Obama care, you'd all better start growing your own medicinal herbs. We've seen this story, and it in the long run it doesn't end well. Ever.

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I'll add a personal comment or two. My father received very good treatment at a VA hospital for many years, and I'd probably go to one if I needed to. But I'd prefer a private hospital and I'd prefer to at least have a choice. Yes, you will hear stories about all sorts of isolated incidents at private hospitals, but a systemic problem like the one described in this article would drive a private chain out of business.

Not so with government operated institutions because as the bureaucracy grows larger there's no market accountability. There's lots of smoke & fire, but at the end of the day the bureaucrats mainly shuffle paper while actually doing very little in terms of concrete action.

>>> The strong reaction came as the agency's inspector general reported that fewer than half of VA facilities selected for surprise inspections last month had proper training and guidelines in place. That was months after the VA launched a nationwide safety campaign over the discovery of errors at facilities in Georgia, Florida and Tennessee that could have exposed veterans to HIV and other infections.

John Daigh, VA's assistant inspector general who led the review, said the findings "troubled me greatly."

"We think there are systemic issues," Daigh said. <<<

Of course there are systemic issues and they "troubled" the IG greatly, but nothing was actually done about the problem. And this problem was identified in 2003. How long does it take to teach people which valve to open & close, especially when the other end of the scope is firmly inserted in someone's body? Do you want someone doing a colonoscopy on you when there's a 57 percent change the staff cannot be shown to have been properly trained in SOP's?

>>> In surprise inspections at 42 VA medical centers on May 13 and 14, investigators found that only 43 percent had standard operating procedures in place and could show they properly trained their staffs for using their equipment. <<<

One other point. Walk into any VA hospital and count the number of doctors & other skilled medical personnel for whom English is a second language. Anyone care to comment on that fact?

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>>Obama is doing all kinds of weird things lately<<

EVERY other industrial nation in the world, including some very anti-socialist ones, protects the health of their citizens.

the key word here is "citizens" if you subtract all the illegals [many of which come here for the free med care they get at hospitals] then the uninsured amount is greatly reduced and you must also subtract those that can afford it but decied they don't want the heath care. thats a life style choice which the government shouldn't take on as a problem for which the other 90-95% percent of the population should pay for.

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Atypical of me to chime in on these sorts of posts, but, since you raise the "life style choice" issue, I wonder about paying for the health care of those who choose certain life styles, i.e., smoking, drinking, speeding, drug usage, overeating, etc.

In my local paper today was a letter headlined "Universal care means people die." The writer continues that she has cancer (unspecified) and now has good insurance. The says, "While all Americans should have access to health care, it should not be at the expense of anyone else." I wonder if she understands that perhaps, should she lose her job (or whoever has the insurance loses the job), that good insurance will disappear. She would find it challenging to obtain individual coverage with her pre-existing condition. I imagine she would gladly refuse Medicaid coverage as it would be at someone else's expense.

I also wonder what she thinks happens to those who now do not have access to health care due to joblessness, homelessness, etc. Many times they die and not from universal health care. One of my clients is a clinic for the homeless, mentally ill. Many times they die.

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