For the May 13, 2013 edition of Tax Notes, National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson wrote a special report on the decision of the U.S. district court in Loving v. IRS.

The article abstract:

“Each year, tens of millions of taxpayers hire paid practitioners to prepare their Form 1040-series returns because of the overwhelming complexity of the tax code and the amount of money at stake. That has led to significant concerns about  incompetent and unscrupulous preparers and their negative impact on taxpayers and compliance. The IRS and Treasury had developed and substantially implemented standards governing preparers when, in Loving v. IRS, a U.S. district  court found that Treasury lacked the authority to issue the regulations. The government has appealed the case to the D.C. Circuit.

The NTA believes that the district court’s decision in Loving is based in part on an outdated understanding of return preparation and filing. This report makes the case for preparer regulation generally, explains where the district court erred, and illustrates how problems in today’s tax system are directly analogous to the problem Congress sought to address in its original grant of regulatory authority to Treasury.”

 

Download the article: Special Report: More Than a ‘Mere’ Preparer: Loving and Return Preparation (Tax Notes)