In case you are not familiar with this program, in short, the FTB does your return for you & sends you a refund check or bill for the balance due.
Aside from the obvious impact on the paid preparers bottom line, this is just wrong in too many ways.
A quote from todays Los Angeles Times:
State tax authorities defied lawmakers Monday by reviving ReadyReturn, a program that allows some taxpayers to have the state do their returns for them, and expanding it from a tiny pilot project to a service for 1 million Californians. (I will post the entire article if anyone is interested. I would post the link, but it will expire today.)
WOW... a million returns.
What I find particularly scary about this is the potential for error by the FTB.
An actual example:
A new client came into my office last week & said they needed their 2005 Federal return done.
I asked them about the CA & they said it was already done. They showed me the correspondence & return the FTB had done for them. They had a refund and of course, happily cashed the check.
I reviewed the return & asked them where was the renters credit. They said they they had wondered that also since they had previously gotten the credit. Aparently they felt so confused, intimidated, bullied and/or pressured into accepting what the almighty FTB sent to them, they didn't question it.
Now assuming the FTB did not give the renters credit to anyone else, this will mean an extra $60 -120 million in the states' pocket when the program ramps up this year.
So now the client still has to pay me to do the federal return AND pay me to amend the CA return. (Which now that I think about it may not be so bad for me since amended returns cost more.)
Sorry for the long post, but I had to vent.
Aside from the obvious impact on the paid preparers bottom line, this is just wrong in too many ways.
A quote from todays Los Angeles Times:
State tax authorities defied lawmakers Monday by reviving ReadyReturn, a program that allows some taxpayers to have the state do their returns for them, and expanding it from a tiny pilot project to a service for 1 million Californians. (I will post the entire article if anyone is interested. I would post the link, but it will expire today.)
WOW... a million returns.
What I find particularly scary about this is the potential for error by the FTB.
An actual example:
A new client came into my office last week & said they needed their 2005 Federal return done.
I asked them about the CA & they said it was already done. They showed me the correspondence & return the FTB had done for them. They had a refund and of course, happily cashed the check.
I reviewed the return & asked them where was the renters credit. They said they they had wondered that also since they had previously gotten the credit. Aparently they felt so confused, intimidated, bullied and/or pressured into accepting what the almighty FTB sent to them, they didn't question it.
Now assuming the FTB did not give the renters credit to anyone else, this will mean an extra $60 -120 million in the states' pocket when the program ramps up this year.
So now the client still has to pay me to do the federal return AND pay me to amend the CA return. (Which now that I think about it may not be so bad for me since amended returns cost more.)
Sorry for the long post, but I had to vent.
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