Fly-by-Night Tax Preparers Escape Punishment
The IRS has ordered $2.4 million in penalties against tax preparers in the past two years but has collected only $291,000. The IRS is clearly outgunned.

GAO findings to be released later this week are expected to demonstrate that the Internal Revenue Service needs to reorder its priorities. Tax officials reportedly told the auditors "they cannot afford to make these low-dollar paid-preparer cases a priority given their responsibility for addressing billions of dollars in uncollected taxes." So, now that more than half the people filing tax returns use paid preparers, some in Congress are finally starting to agree with practitioner groups, which have long fought to get all preparers registered or licensed. More...