Licensing of tax preparers

The IRS lost its appeal to institute competency exams for as many as 700,000 paid tax preparers. The federal court said the IRS lacked the authority to impose the new rules without congressional authorization. While this argument would not likely hold water as concerns additional licensing requirements for lawyers, the arguments used rang a bell.

For example, i) the proposed regulations were onerous; ii) the proposed regulations would have put thousands of mom-and-pop tax preparers out of business.  On the other side of the coin, the IRS needed to weed out ill-trained and incompetent tax preparers.

Paid tax preparers fill out 60% of all U.S. tax returns and the government has found significant problems over the years by the work done by this group.

The arguments are all to familiar and can be super-imposed on the legal profession  where more than 60% of the practitioners are solo.

The question always is "how good does good have to be?" What would these people do if they couldn’t find a tax preparer (substitute attorney) at a price they could afford to pay for work that was substantially correct,even if not perfect?

I would like perfection … but even the best lawyers from major law schools (in my experience) are not perfect … are always at a price that most of us can’t afford to pay. As one of my mentors has said, don’t shoot for perfection; when you’re 80% good, go! 

Related to this, though by a stretch, I listened to an NPR program in the last couple of days that talked about teenage suicide, a growing epidemic. The psychologists maintain that the stress caused by our current generation seeking perfection, and then realizing they can’t reach that goal, is the catalyst for many suicide attempts.

To the IRS and to the Bar: Define "competence" so our professionals can attain the standard and the average American citizen can afford to engage professional assistance.

Categorized in: In The News