New client in jail!!

[myerstaxes]

You Would Be Surprised

At what the IRS actually looks at and gets their information from...I had a Revenue Agent working for me (yes I am former IRS Agent and Manager) who routinely looked for cases in the newspaper...He would build cases on people who were in the news for embezzlement, and other such crimes where possible unreported income was obvious...
So, being the cautious person I am and what I know could possibly happen, I would fire the client...Just the way I do business, cause I know what I did before I retired from what my fellow EA's call " The Dark Side"...

[S T]

Good to see you back posting

Myerstaxes -

Welcome Back!

I agree - I wouldn't want to prepare this return, no matter how much I could charge

Sandy

[kpangelinan]

At what the IRS actually looks at and gets their information from...I had a Revenue Agent working for me (yes I am former IRS Agent and Manager) who routinely looked for cases in the newspaper...He would build cases on people who were in the news for embezzlement, and other such crimes where possible unreported income was obvious...
So, being the cautious person I am and what I know could possibly happen, I would fire the client...Just the way I do business, cause I know what I did before I retired from what my fellow EA's call " The Dark Side"...

So, let me get this straight.....someone prepares a return that gets noticed and audited by the IRS and they find some kind of fraud in it....is the preparer liable for this? Or are you saying don't prepare the return because somehow the preparer could get in trouble for preparing this return?

I see the wisdom in staying away from trouble, but help me with the trouble part.....everyone has clients that push the envelope with underreporting or over expensing....I have to deal with it all the time....I don't fire all these people.

[myerstaxes]

I am not saying that the preparer will be in trouble per se...But, why get tangled up in a situation where you know you have a problem? Recently in audits where I represent clients (and was not the preparer) and there are some questionable items on the return, there are a lot of questions by the examiner about the preparer...Such as who was it, did they know this and that...As a former revenue agent, when I audited a return where there were glaring errors or omissions, I did try to garner information about that preparer...Under this new Director of Practice, we are under the microscope now more than I ever remember during my 30+ years with the service...

[Golden Rocket]

Myers

Myers, good to have you back. Not long ago I posted about the new mentality for collections which seems to have this creed:

"It is now easier to collect money from preparer penalties than to chase down and try to collect from deadbeats who have no money, hard to find, and worthless to pursue."

Based on your experience, old and new, would you comment further? My thoughts are that they could stop lots of abuse and cheating if they would get off their butts and get out in the field and audit like they used to, instead of mamby-pamby computer matching programs and easy-bureaucratic witch hunts against preparers who aren't in a position to know anything.

What if Congress said, "If you can't collect from the taxpayer, then you can't collect from the preparer." That sounds good to me, not that it would ever happen.

[oceanlovin'ea]

came back today

Client came in today. I explained to her that I wasn't comfortable preparing the return since I had read the article and "IF" charges were true and I wasn't saying they were just "if" there would be income from either selling the merchandise or from someone else paying her. So I couldn't sign the return that I believed this was all of her income for the year.

She was very nice....said she intended to ask me if I wanted her to go somewhere else.

I told her if everything was ok next year to come back to see me. She assured me she would be back.

Feel much better now.

Linda, EA