Is the IRS Imposing "Voluntary" Continuing-Education Requirements for Tax Preparers?
Oh, IRS, will you ever win?
Via Instapundit comes this Hill story about pre-emptive pushback "against an expected move by the Internal Revenue Service to impose voluntary education standards for tax preparers."
The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) sent a letter Wednesday urging IRS Commissioner John Koskinen to abandon the rumored plan.
The action follows the agency's failed bid to enact mandatory regulations designed to crack down on unscrupulous and unqualified tax preparers.
A federal appeals court blocked that effort in February, concluding in a case known as Loving v. IRS that the agency overreached by trying to implement continuing education requirements for hundreds of thousands of tax return preparers.
The IRS decided against asking the Supreme Court to take up the case, with Koskinen suggesting a voluntary certification program may be in order.
That system, the AICPA argues, would create implied government backing for those preparers who comply with the standards, while punishing those who do not.
