Taxable Talk

I’m generally a supporter of the National Association of Enrolled Agents and its policies. However, I disagree with the idea that both the NAEA and the IRS have that regulating tax preparers will magically make preparer fraud go away. It’s just not true.

Yet another case in point comes out of the San Joaquin Valley in California. From the DOJ press release:

The United States filed a civil complaint asking a federal court in Fresno, Calif., to enjoin Ken Mendoza and Alice Mendoza from preparing federal tax returns for others, the Justice Department announced today. The complaint alleges that the Mendozas frequently prepare tax returns for individuals claiming refunds from the federal government that are not deserved. According to the complaint, since 2010, the Mendozas have prepared over 600 tax returns for individuals in the Fresno area.

According to the complaint, the Mendozas improperly understate their customers’ federal tax liabilities by fabricating business expenses, claiming false or inflated credits, particularly educational credits, and deducting customers’ personal expenses that are not legally deductible. In total, the complaint alleges that the loss to the U.S. Treasury from the Mendozas’ activities could be as much as $2.8 million for tax years 2010 through 2011.

California requires all tax professionals who are not EAs, CPAs, or attorneys to register with CTEC. If the IRS is right that regulating tax professionals stops tax preparer fraud, Mr. Mendoza wouldn’t be registered. The IRS’s view is just another fairy tale.

Mr. Mendoza is registered with CTEC (I checked). That means he went to some continuing education and regurgitated some basic information on taxes. Taking continuing education courses does not turn a good person into a bad person (or vice versa).

I’m hoping that cases such as these–and mind you, I do want the Bozo side of my profession to be gone–will put a stop to the idea that regulating tax professionals will magically make all tax professionals angels. Let me be blunt: Wherever there is money around, there will be bad people around. There will always be people going after the dishonest buck and nothing anyone says or does will ever change that.

I do want to point out the other point of this post for taxpayers who read this: You are responsible for your tax return. Read it. Ask questions if you don’t understand something. The Tax Code is complex, and there are things that seem obvious that aren’t on a tax return. If you have a good tax professional, he or she will want to answer your questions.

Tags: BozoTaxPreparer, PreparerRegistration

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 9th, 2014 at 7:57 pm and is filed under Tax Preparation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.