A provision in the new 1.1 trillion dollar spending bill passed by Congress and signed into law by the President standardizes the need for everyone who files, paid preparers and self prepared returns alike, to fill out the standardized checklists and worksheets to claim the Additional Child Tax Credit and the Earned Income Credit.  Before this, self prepared returns were not required to fill out the checklists and worksheets.  Some paid preparers were complaining that other competitors were avoiding filling the documents out by not signing the returns and filing the returns as self prepared by the taxpayer.  See the details in this posting in Accounting Today by Michael Cohn:

http://www.accountingtoday.com/news/government-news/congress-requires-consumer-tax-software-improper-tax-credits-73058-1.html?utm_campaign=daily-dec%2018%202014&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&ET=webcpa%3Ae3513258%3A2498807a%3A&st=email

While I am happy at every attempt by the IRS to try and combat tax fraud, I question how effective this will be.  If a paid preparer is unscrupulous enough to file the return as self prepared by the taxpayer, what will prevent him or her from falsifying the checklists and worksheets so the taxpayer can still claim the credits.  They are filing the returns as self prepared so they do not have to take responsibility for the return preparation in the first place.  Still it is a step in the right direction. 

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