When accounting goes unaccounted for
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The IRS Commissioner and his subaltern for preparer regulation this week spilled some of the beans about the “competency tests” that they are imposing on the unwashed (non-CPA, non-lawyer, non-enrolled agent) preparers. Some key bits, as reported by Tax Analysts (sorry, subscriber-only link):
This confirms the obvious: the competency test will be a joke. It has to be, or too few preparers would survive to prepare the nation’s returns. It won’t be completely open-book, but it sounds like you will be able to pass if you have adequate skills at reading and using an index.
This all makes it look like the cynics are right – it’s all about extending IRS power over preparers.
Don’t believe me? Listen to Shulman’s own words:
Today, I want to talk for a little bit about some of our priority programs, such as the Return Preparer Program, the evolution of our relationship with our largest corporate taxpayers, including Schedule UTP, and our work on what we’re calling a real time tax system.
The common thread that runs through them is points of leverage and working smarter.
Points of leverage sounds like what a wrestler uses to pin an opponent. The IRS can use these “points of leverage” to make preparers more subjects of the government and less advocates for their clients. And in their own sweet time, they will.
Since he’s such a passionate guy, Glenn Beck will not hesitate to call someone out if he feels that they are cheating the American people. He’s a crusader for justice, after all.
For example, Tim Geithner, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Tom Daschle, Labor Secretary Hilda Solis and others were all called “tax cheats” by GB early last year and he also mentioned that he wouldn’t entrust his children to them (nice touch).
So it’s more than a little awkward for Becks when Politico reports that Mercury Radio Arts, his production company, has had some of its own tax troubles:
Mercury, a private corporation that lists Beck as chief executive officer and his wife, Tania Beck, alternately as vice president or secretary, since 2007 has fallen behind on its New York City business income taxes and has been cited for filing errors related to its obligations under Texas franchise tax and New York state workers’ compensation insurance rules.
Politico reports that the company owed just over $25k in back taxes and penalties but since everything has been cleared up it’s NBD. However, we do seem to have a little bit of a pot and kettle situation. What’s even more stupid is that everyone is all bent out of shape over these people screwing up their taxes even though no one was willfully trying to dodge the tax law:
Dean Zerbe, national managing director for a company called alliantgroup that provides specialty tax services to accounting firms, said Beck’s situation “has the look and feel of somebody who is confronting an extraordinarily complicated tax situation — or at least the people he’s hired to do these things are — and is trying to comply but isn’t doing everything perfectly.”
The same, however, could be said of most of the Obama nominees Beck has blasted for tax problems, said Zerbe, who called them “people who were trying to comply with the spirit and the intent of the law.”
As it has been mentioned, our tax system is complicated and that’s putting it lightly. The fact that all these people made mistakes doesn’t go so much to anything about them as Americans as it does the tax system being a giant shitshow. So if that is indeed the case, does this mean that all this name calling and finger pointing is politically motivated? GET THE HELL OUT OF HERE.
What if it’s Beck with a tax ‘accident’? [Politico]