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…
In light of the decision in Loving et al v Commissioner where the court ruled that the Internal Revenue Service did not have the authority to regulate tax preparers, the IRS has issued the following statement: As of Friday, Jan. 18, 2013, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia has enjoined the…
It turns out that the IRS can’t do everything it wants after all. Last year, three independent tax preparers, Sabina Loving of Chicago, Illinois, John Gambino of Hoboken, N.J., and Elmer Kilian of Eagle, Wisconsin, took on the IRS, accusing it among other things, of lacking the authority to license tax preparers. The lawsuit was…
X is for X-Mark (Signature). No matter how thorough and accurate your tax return is, it’s not considered a valid return unless you sign it. If you are filing a joint tax return, your spouse must also sign. If you can’t sign your tax return for some reason, a representative can sign it on your…
“Because I said so.” As a parent, I’ve grown to love the power of those words. But as a professional? Not so much. At work, I like to have rules. And I like to think we have those rules for a reason. I don’t like it when rules don’t make sense, appear arbitrary, or aren’t…
I had a great time on Friday with our “Ask the taxgirl LIVE” segment. I know there wasn’t a lot of notice about it and yes, I heard about it (thanks for your emails and messages). This was my first time live blogging on Forbes and we had some technical pieces to work out. That…
So I’m going to let you in on a little secret: I don’t prepare my own tax returns. Completely true. It is how I stay married. You see, I used to prepare my own returns for my business and for my household. And I did just fine for a bit. But then I had three…
About 1 out of every 8 of the nation’s professional tax return preparers failed to comply with new regulations for 2011, according to information released by the IRS. The IRS has announced that approximately 100,000 paid preparers prepared federal tax returns in 2011 without being properly registered. About 712,2000 paid preparers did register properly with…
The IRS has recently released Notice 2011-6 (downloads as a pdf) which further explains its position with respect to oversight of tax professionals. It’s big news in the tax professional world. Perhaps the most notable of the info posted in the Notice was an exception to the IRS requirements for certain tax preparers who will…
That sigh you just heard? It’s the sound of tax professionals everywhere finally breathing after the IRS issued final regulations requiring paid tax return preparers to register with the IRS to obtain a Preparer Tax Identification Number (PTIN). The move to PTINs (and associated regs) has been making news for some time now as IRS…