Wednesday, December 9, 2015

FOR MY FELLOW TAX PROFESSIONALS - A SPECIAL REQUEST


Last week I sent a letter to the Board of Directors of the following national tax preparer membership organizations –

National Association of Tax Professionals
National Association of Enrolled Agents
National Society of Accountants
National Society of Tax Professionals
Latino Tax Professionals Association

In the letter I said –

I strongly believe, as do many of my fellow tax professionals, that the tax preparation industry needs a strong and unified voice, a lobby, in Washington to represent the interests of tax preparers before the Internal Revenue Service and Congress.

As Congress continues to, in my opinion erroneously, use the Tax Code to administer and distribute federal social welfare and other benefit programs, and the IRS, in response, forces more excessive due-diligence requirements upon us, requiring us to be social workers as well as tax preparers, we should not just ‘grin and bear it’, but fight back.

Although most national tax professional membership organizations have some form of ‘government liaison’ and/or ‘political action’ functions, the limited memberships of the individual organizations are not large enough to provide sufficient ‘weight’ to any lobbying attempts.

Just about every other profession has a lobby in Washington. So why not the tax preparation profession?

The creation of a new independent organization of tax preparers, or of PTIN-holders, would be difficult, time consuming, and expensive.  My alternative is to create a Tax Professional Advocacy Council that includes official representatives of the National Association of Tax Professionals (NATP), the National Association of Enrolled Agents (NAEA), the National Society of Accountants (NSA), the National Society of Tax Professionals (NSTP), and the Latino Tax Professionals Association (LTPA), and any other legitimate national tax preparer membership organization.  This Council would speak with one voice for the combined memberships of all the organizations.”

The letter ended with a request that the organization “work with the other national tax professional membership organizations I have identified above to form a Tax Professional Advocacy Council to provide a voice in Washington for the tax preparer.” 

Tax professionals - if you agree with what I have said above, and you are a member of one of the national membership organizations that I have written to, I ask that you also send a letter to the Board of Directors of the organization in support of my request.

I am also interested in hearing your thoughts and comments on my suggestion.

Thanks!

TTFN


 
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2 comments:

Chris Johnson, EA said...

Hello Bob,

Definitely a good idea however there is one thing you left out - Congress desperately needs to restore all the funding they cut from the Internal Revenue Service! It is insane and suicidal over the $2 billion+ they cut from the agency. Every dollar spent on the IRS generates anywhere from $6 to $14 in revenue, depending on the type of tax and other factors. Show me any investment that does better than that. If cutting the IRS budget isn't short sighted, I don't know what is. You don't cut the budget of a government agency that takes in far more revenue than it spends! It makes no sense.

These budget cuts are causing a lot of problems for myself and my clientele. While refund processing doesn't seem to have changed much, getting through on the phone to the IRS in order to deal with various issues concerning assessments or problems with their filings takes forever, if I can even get through to anyone. It really makes me want to quit the business sometimes.

Robert D Flach said...

CJ-

I agree with you that continually cutting the IRS budget, while increasing its responsibilities re: ACA, is a truly stupid move. But, then, the members of Congress are idiots.

TWTP