The
Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) is a federal welfare payment, applied for on
the 1040 or 1040A tax return and administered by the Internal Revenue Service.
Traditional
welfare payments are administered and distributed by government welfare
agencies on a state level, with applicants required to submit to the
appropriate agency independent documentation to support their qualification for
the benefit.
Individuals
applying for the EITC on self-filed tax returns simply need to enter numbers on
their tax form and include a Form EIC to identify the dependent children that
qualify them for the credit if applicable.
No independent documentation is required to be submitted to the Internal
Revenue Service with the filing of the tax return.
It
has been suggested that as many as 1/3 of all EITC claims are erroneous. And the refundable portion of the EITC is one
of the main sources of tax fraud, costing the government billions of dollars
each year.
If
an EITC applicant uses a paid tax professional to prepare their tax return the
government requires, under threat of a $500 penalty, that the paid preparer
undertake excessive due diligence in verifying the applicant’s qualification
for the benefit and prepare an additional tax form identifying and certifying
compliance with the excessive due diligence requirement.
A
paid tax preparer charges a fee based on the time and work involved in
preparing a tax return. A tax return
that includes an application for the EITC requires additional time and work,
legally required by legislation and government regulation. So, the preparation of a return including an
EITC claim costs more, or should cost more, than a non-EITC tax return. By definition, EITC claimants are low-income
individuals who cannot necessary afford additional fees. Yet the government forces them to pay a fee
to apply for a federal welfare payment.
Some
tax professionals, realizing the inappropriateness of this situation, do not
charge clients claiming the EITC the full and proper fee to which they are
legally, ethically and morally entitled for the additional work they are
required to do by the government.
So,
in effect, either the taxpayer applying for an EITC or the tax professional
preparing the return with an EITC claim is penalized.
Here
are some solutions to these serious problems.
(1)
Remove the Earned Income Tax Credit from the US Tax Code and require
individuals to apply for and receive this benefit via traditional welfare
channels.
(2) Require
tax filers claiming the EITC to use the services of an IRS-sponsored VITA
center to prepare their return, where independent documentation of
qualification would be required to be provided to the VITA preparer or file
their return electronically directly to the IRS via the IRS website, with
independent documentation required to be included with the submission of the
return.
(3) Forbid
paid tax preparers to charge an additional fee for claiming the EITC on a tax
return and have the IRS, using the PTIN filing system, pay tax professionals a
pre-determined fee for each return they prepared with an EITC claim within 60
days of April 15th and October 15th.
Obviously,
solution #1 is the best and easiest answer.
So,
what do you think?
TTFN
3 comments:
Thoughtful comments and yes number 1 makes the most sense. I suspect that the EIC is a very low percentage type of return for most independent tax preparers so I don't see this as a big issue. Also, in some ways, even number 1 would add work to the overall processes since most current EIC tax return filers would have to tax file anyway if there were no EIC.
interesting. as an independent tax preparer, i don't charge 'extra' for the 8867, whether it is for the EITC, the CTC, or the AOTC. i am asking all the questions as part of my due diligence anyway, and it rarely takes me more than an additional 5 minutes to 'tic' the boxes. some years my clients qualify, some years they don't. if i am spending an hour on a return, or two hours, or three hours, which particular forms compose those hours seldom influences my fee.
btw, have you ever gone to a VITAS preparer? very nice people. generally very little training.
very limited hours of availability. the thought of low income wage earners having to sit for hours, take off from work, to go to a VITAS center is ridiculous.
as for some pittance from the government? not interested.
but i'm sure all the ripoff store fronts would be.
well laid out argument. In our office if the return has EITC the minimum for the return will be what the penalty might be. So with the increase to $500. that is our fee for a return with EITC. We are not going to go in the hole for a return that we prepared if in the future the claim was deemed incorrect.
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