PREPARER REGISTRATION RAISES CONCERNS IN CONGRESS

[Edward]

From NATP TAXPRO WEEKLY, 8/12/10: " Last week 31 members of Congress sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner expressing concerns on two provisions in the IRS proposal regulating tax preparers. The concern raised was with regard to the registration of nonsigning preparers and the competency testing requirement. The Congressmen stated that the competency testing requirment may impose unnecessary burdens on the IRS' limited resources and tax return preparers and ultimately increase taxpayers' costs for return preparation. They also are not convinced that testing will eliminate some of the problems the IRS has identified within the tax preparation industry and they do not believe the IRS has adequately demonstrated that testing is needed. They feel that once the PTIN and registration system is operational, the IRS will have the resources necessary to track preparers and determine which ones need discipline. Their concerns are not unlike the concerns NATP has expessed from the beginning of this process. As always, NATP will keep you informed as these issues develop."

[jainen]

>> 31 members of Congress <<

Yeah, yeah. NATP threw some shindig and got a few signatures. Big deal.

Don't read too much into this. It's just political blather from a special-interest lobby trying to impress its members by pushing some hot buttons. The article itself even says the letter was nothing but the same old unsupported objections the IRS had already dealt with.

Oh, wait--I didn't notice this was OUR lobby! Well, in that case it's great that Congress is intervening to stop this evil plan.