Taxable Talk

When I attended the annual CSEA SuperSeminar, Karen Hawkins, Director of the Office of Professional Responsibility (of the IRS), told a luncheon crowd that a new version of Circular 230 will be released within two weeks. Well, that didn’t happen. However, it’s about to happen. The new version is out there so sometime really soon (now, probably within two weeks) enrolled tax professionals (EAs, CPAs, and attorneys) will have a new Circular 230.

The one thing that all my clients will notice is the elimination of the Circular 230 notice. You know, this:

CIRCULAR 230 NOTICE: This opinion is limited to the one or more Federal tax issues addressed in the opinion. Additional issues may exist that could affect the Federal tax treatment of the transaction or matter that is the subject of this opinion and the opinion does not consider or provide a conclusion with respect to any additional issues. With respect to any significant Federal tax issues outside the limited scope of this opinion, the article was not written, and cannot be used by the taxpayer for the purpose of avoiding penalties that may be imposed on the taxpayer.

Once the new version of Circular 230 is effective, those notices are a thing of the past. Since every email has had one of these notices, they’re ignored by every client (the boy who cried wolf syndrome). This change is welcome, and kudos to the IRS on this.

There are other changes, including changes in written advice, procedures to ensure compliance with “covered opinion” rules, general standard of competence, electronic negotiation of taxpayer refunds, expedited suspension procedures, and the scope of the Office of Professional Responsibility.

For tax professionals who provide written advice to clients, a full reading of the new §10.37 is essential. There are numerous other changes, most of which appear to be minor.

Tags: Circular230

This entry was posted on Sunday, June 15th, 2014 at 7:16 pm and is filed under IRS. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.