In light of the final ruling in the “Loving” case, which doesn’t give the IRS authority to regulate paid income tax preparers (except for preparers governed by circular 230, like Enrolled Agents, CPAs and others), more “bad” tax preparers have been surfacing who take advantage of taxpayers and give all preparers a bad name. See this article in AccountingToday by Jeff Stimpson as he questions how well the profession can help shut down these preparers:

http://www.accountingtoday.com/news/tax_essentials/can-the-profession-control-bad-preparers-70803-1.html

Since the courts have deemed the regulation issue DOA, except for voluntary compliance (this is working so well already) and the profession itself has all ten fingers in a dyke with twice as many holes, the only hope seems to be legislative (perhaps at the state level, as the climate isn’t right at this time for Congress to change circular 230 and let the IRS regulate tax preparation). As this article says, hairdressers and plumbers need a state license; shouldn’t tax preparers need one as well?

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