The Internal Revenue Service and national professional tax groups are cooperating to provide information on selecting honest tax preparers. There is information to help taxpayers avoid unscrupulous preparers and a gateway page that links to sites of national non-profit groups, such as the American Institute of CPAS.Tips are available on the site IRS.gov/chooseataxpro, while the gateway page links to the professional organizations. The basic tips include making sure the preparer signs returns and uses a Preparer Tax Identification Number. Taxpayers are also warned that being asked to sign a blank return is a clear warning the preparer is probably unscrupulous.
The ChooseaTaxPro site explains different professional categories while the new partner page links to web sites of participating organizations.
These include the National Association of Enrolled Agents; National Society of Tax Professionals; National Association of Tax Professionals; National Society of Accountants; National Conference of CPA Practitioners; American Association of Attorney-Certified Public Accountants; and Council for Electronic Revenue Communication Advancement.
In January, IRS intends to launch the Directory of Federal Tax Return Preparers with Credentials and Select Qualifications on its website. This will be a searchable, sortable database with the name, city, state and zip code of credentialed return preparers and of those completed the requirements for the new IRS Annual Filing Season Program. To be listed, practitioners must have valid 2015 Preparer Tax Identification Numbers.