Another Last Minute Gift Idea for That Special Tax Nerd in Your Life

The IRS is on you like white on rice.

The Internal Revenue Service is taking steps to stop tax preparers with criminal tax convictions or permanent injunctions from preparing tax returns. This is just one of several recent moves to improve the quality and oversight of the tax preparation industry.

More than 700,000 tax preparers nationwide have registered with the IRS and obtained Preparer Tax Identification Numbers (PTINs). This nine-digit number must be used by paid tax return preparers on all returns or claims for refund. Paid preparers must renew their PTINs annually to legally prepare tax returns.

“We owe it to all taxpayers and the many honest tax return preparers to remove the relatively small number of bad actors from the tax preparation industry,” said Doug Shulman, IRS Commissioner. “Just one unscrupulous tax return preparer can cause a lot of financial damage to both taxpayers and the tax system.”

Nineteen ne’er-do-wells have already gotten word that they’ll be stripped of their PTINs for unseemly behavior of some kind or another. Best get that CPA so you don’t have to mess with the whole thing…until you the IRS lumps them in too.

IRS Begins Enforcement of New Return Preparer Rules [IRS]