It wasn’t just one office, it was several. Plenty enough to show a pattern.

To be clear, I DO think the video was a set up. Those were my words. I DO think that the filmmaker, rightly or wrongly, set out to make a point and was going to go about it until he did it. The fact that he went to many, many ACORN offices before finding this one, clearly impersonating someone that he wasn’t, says to me that he was hoping for a certain result – and he got it. Like Michael Moore cornering CEOs for his flicks, it’s a set up.

But the bit about the VITA clientele and VITA volunteers being more likely to commit fraud – that was in an email that I was responding to.
Sorry for the confusion.

My nightmare was when people previously had their taxes done by (well-known tax preparation franchises) in prior years. A significant number of those customers would throw fits when I told them (in CY 2005 and 2006):

1. No, you can’t include your textbook costs as an expense for the education credit, unless they were fees payable to the institution as a condition of attendance.
2. No, you can’t include (the price of your computer/Internet costs) as an expense or the education credit, unless they were fees payable to the institution as a condition of attendance.
3. No, you can’t include tuition costs paid by the military as an expense for the education credit. You didn’t incur the expense, so…
4. Offsets: If you got $1000 in VA educational benefits and your tuition was $1300, you have $300 in expenses toward the education credit. If you got $1300 from VA and paid $1000 in tuition, you have $0 in expenses toward the education credit.

Some would get outraged and say “why are you denying this? (insert firm) let me take that!”

I would respond that I wasn’t denying them anything; that was up to IRS…but that I would not knowingly prepare an improper return.

Short version: In my experience, we tried to do the right thing. Based on customer anecdotes, the tax franchises either missed elementary issues or would put anything down that made the customer happy.

VITA isn’t a bad program, but it is good that ACORN is out of it.

I wonder if Jackson-Hewitt and H&R Block will continue to donate to ACORN? Both companies started donating shortly after ACORN started sending in large groups of ‘volunteers’ to disrupt some of their tax offices.

But the problem isn’t what you or I or any other preparer know, but does the person preparing the return know how and do a good job probing? Do you think the family if they prepare their own return online have any idea?

But the problem is, if the parents came into a typical VITA or even a professional preparers office. And they told the preparer that they had 3 children they wanted to claim on the tax return, would the preparer probe and find out one of the children should be on the tax return of another child they didn’t even mention? If they don’t in my example you just cost that family aproximately $3000.00

In the first example, the parents don’t even file a tax return. Both parents were on social security disablity only. The 19 yr old comes into a typical preparers desk and has one W2 only and expects some of the withholding taxes back. Entirely too many prepares both VITA and professional will never probe and find out she can legally claim her sister. How is it possible if she files online on any website in existence she is legally entitled to the $5000 that she is entitled?

The 2009 rules changed and says the 19 yr old has to have a higher AGI than the parents. But if the parents only income is Social Security and therefore none of it is taxable. Is their AGI not zero? Can she not claim her sister again in 2009?

I was in Dallas, Texas @ IRS forum couple weeks ago. I was in a focus group with 11 other preparers and there were 3 preparers there that said that for the sibling to claim the 19 yr old had to provide 50% support. Now you would think they should be the best of the best if they were @ such a forum.

My mother used to say that to prepare tax returns a good preparer has to be a “snoop”. She was correct. Tax returns should not be prepared by anyone other than those that have a talent of probingl, no matter how simple it seems the return is.

Jeff Day