In 2013, attorney Dan Alban of the Institute for Justice argued that the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) could not license tax preparers for one simple reason: Congress never gave the IRS the authority to license tax preparers, and the IRS can’t give itself that power. The courts agreed. However, Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) aims to change that…
Last year, three tax preparers sued the Internal Revenue Service to prevent the agency from pushing ahead with new regulations. The three were successful – and the IRS filed an appeal. Yesterday, the IRS had the chance to tell a panel of judges why the regulations are appropriate. Were those oral arguments convincing?
On January 18, 2013, a federal court stopped IRS “dead in its tracks” from enforcing its new regulatory scheme for registered tax-return preparers. In response, the IRS filed a motion to stay the injunction – that’s a lawyerly way of saying that the IRS asked the court not to enforce the injunction and to allow…
Tax season officially got started yesterday as the Internal Revenue Service began accepting most taxpayer returns. Opening day for the IRS had been delayed by more than a week, following a last-minute tax deal meted out by Congress in early January. That wouldn’t be the only challenge for the agency this month: just days before…
Two things happened on Sunday. One, I sat down for an interview with Dan Alban, the lead attorney in Loving et al v. Commissioner (downloads as a pdf). And two, I had friends over to the new house for a chat. You might think the two are completely unrelated. But you’d be wrong. You see,…