 Into the revenue service RIS tax news. What taxpayers should know when choosing a tax professional? Well, I would think looking at the history of the tax professional would be a good start. However, it is difficult with so much defamation and retconning of history Casually going on these days. I mean honestly like they're even going after fictional characters from over like 40 years ago to retcon Did you know that the Wikipedia which is like the Star Wars Wikipedia thing is even retconning Luke Skywalker is gay now What what's that Phil yes Luke is totally gay Yeah, I don't know Phil. I mean, I mean just because he winds for like the entire first three movies Doesn't necessarily make him gay Phil. I'm just saying oh, I see I see Phil He's he's unquestionably gay because at the beginning Luke had a blue lightsaber and then at the end He had a green one and both those colors are part of the rainbow So Luke is like totally gay Yeah, but but wait a second for all all all colors are all colors are part of the rainbow Phil all color Like what what was he supposed to do have like a black lightsaber? I mean what okay? I'm not I'm not gonna talk to you about this any longer Phil. I'm just anyways. Don't get me wrong It's not a big deal Everyone could see this coming and Star Wars has been a complete mess for a long long time Ever since that galaxy got less and less far away from the gravitational pull of that giant woke mouse head Star Wars now finding itself lodged into the mouse's huge left mouse ear And you thought the Death Star was dangerous But one must wonder is this finally it for Star Wars Has death finally inserted his rusty randy old nail into the cold corpse of a once great But clearly mentally sick Star Wars franchise the proverbial death nail of wokeness Honestly, what why is it that the current generation always has to make the prior generations heroes gay? I mean, I swear like my parents generation loved cowboys But my generation seemed to take every opportunity to present cowboys like that one dude from the YMCA Maybe maybe it's just a way for the new generation to struggle for independence And I see your Schwartz is as big as mine Now let's see how well you handle it Search something like that. I don't know in any case all the history retconning and defamation Sure makes it difficult to get an accurate read on anybody to do business with I'll tell you that before you die. There is something you should know about our Sloan star. I Am your father's brother's nephew's cousin's former roommate What's that make us? Absolutely nothing and as for the movie makers You have to ask Where are they getting these writers from and why are they being paid millions of dollars to write crap? When better scripts are being made every day by like youtubers and their living rooms already nothing Driven by simply passion well, I guess everyone has a story in them and for the current crew of Hollywood giant IP writers That's where it should stay dang it a Point possibly they already know which is why they prefer stealing and destroying other people's stories But whatever and at least I still have the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Onto the news this are till you and have a bad motivator. Look, it just isn't fair Biggest ride. I'm never gonna get out of here. I are as tax tip 2023-19 February 14th 2023 many taxpayers turn to tax professionals to help them prepare their federal tax return These taxpayers should choose their preparer with care Choose wisely while most tax return preparers provide quality service Unfortunately, some are Unreputable or even fraudulent taxpayers are ultimately responsible for all the information on their income tax return Regardless of who prepares their return So let me give a little bit of a recap on this note that when you're looking for a tax preparation if you're on the low income Side of things then you would still generally want some help with the preparation possibly simply from tax Software also note that if you're on the low income side of things You might think that your income is so low that you don't need to file your tax return Which might be the case But I would still check it out because you might have access to free software to do so and there's still a lot of Like low-income tax credits refundable tax credits like an earned income tax credit and a child tax credit For example that might be applicable So you might still get like a refund which wouldn't really be a refund in that case it'd be kind of like a benefit type of program and so you probably want to look at that and Doing it by hand becomes quite complex even on what used to be the easy tax returns the low-income tax return side of things Because of these kind of refundable credits being quite complicated earned income tax credit child tax credit Credits related to health care for example can be quite Confusing so I would think you would at least want the software to help you out You might be able to get access to free software looking on the IRS website at the free file Software and seeing if you can get access to that making sure that you're picking a software Which will be a third-party software that is attentive to your needs such as your state tax return Needs as well as your income goes up You might not be able to get access to the free software because your income will be higher Your tax return now will get more complex not because you're subject to the low-income tax credits Like an earned income tax credit because it will be phased out as Your income goes up, but you have other things that will complicate your income and usually you have more tax-planning Kind of scenarios because now you have cash flow Which could allow you to put your money in different areas such as retirement accounts and whatnot that could I have a tax planning impact? Therefore you would at least I would think still want to use tax software to prepare your tax return If your income is above the threshold to get access to the free software Because you'd still want to the added help that the software does provide or you might want to get advice from a tax Professional not simply for the immediate need of preparing the current tax return But because now you have those tax planning needs so you would like to hire someone that's going to be there Into the future to help you with the planning component and help you if there's any kind of audit type of situation That happens on out into the future also just realize that when you hire somebody Then if people tend to think that the that the person they're hiring is like part of the IRS or something or like they have the liability You've handed all the liability to the tax preparer, which is not the case The the tax preparer still gives their information on the return But the IRS is primarily going to go after you if there's something that's incorrect on the tax return And so you want you're hiring the tax preparer basically as an agent So therefore you want to make sure that you're hiring someone that you have some faith in how could you have faith in the tax Preparer well if it's the first one you you're working with you probably want to look at the history of the tax preparer See how they're marketing if they're marketing that they're going to give you a big refund or something like that That's usually an indication that there might be more scammy kind of situation as opposed to you know We're gonna we're gonna do the tax returns as best we can get you as big a refund as we can in accordance with the law Kind of kind of situation and you want the tax return preparer to be there hopefully In the event that an audit happens which could happen like three years or even further in some cases After the tax return has been prepared So those are just just a couple things to keep in mind when you're looking at Credentials then the three credentials you got enrolled agents You got CPAs and you've got lawyers for example could represent you in front of the tax court and others possibly could do the preparation If you have business information like you have a sole proprietorship or S corporation or something like that Then you might lean towards the CPA at that point because they're usually the ones that have more accounting background that might be able to help you with You know the adjusting entries and tax entries to kind of shore up your books to have them be correct for Tax preparation if you're if you don't have a more complex business needs Then maybe the enrolled agent would be less expensive sometimes than some CPA firms depending This is just a general rule depends where you go and then lawyers usually Specialized because they have a very broad kind of spectrum and then they specialize some might specialize in Law if they do it's usually in some special area like S corporation creation or something like that And you know there's a whole bunch of different areas, but it's usually a more complex kind of area So you want to be a little bit careful on the with them Because they're gonna cost more often times and that specialty is often something that they basically sell And so you want to so if you're gonna if you ask like a like a Someone who who does a business of creating S corporations whether or not you should make your business into an S corporation It shouldn't be surprising that most likely they're gonna advise You to go to an S corporation doesn't necessarily make them make it wrong But just be careful when you go to a very specialized area and ask a question like do I need your specialized service? Because odds are you know, they want to pick up a client. So they're not exactly independent in those situations sometimes Okay, so taxpayers can review these IRS resources when choosing their tax preparer So the choosing a tax professional page There's a link to that here on iris.gov has information about tax return preparer credentials and qualifications So the IRS directory of federal tax return preparers with credentials and select qualifications There's a link to that here can help identify many preparers by type of credential or qualification When using a tax return preparer taxpayers should Look for a preparer who is available year-round in case questions come up after filing season is over So if your tax preparer skipping town after tax return season is up I mean if they're coming back, that's one thing But if you're like, oh, they're going to disappear forever I've never seen it before and now they're here and then they're going to disappear That's not good because even if your tax return clears It still could be audited, you know at least three years or more if there's something fraudulent possibly Into the future So ask about our service fees taxpayers should avoid tax return preparers who base their fees on a percent Of the refund or who offer a deposit all or part of the refund into their own financial accounts So again, if a tax return preparer is advertising, I get you a better refund than anyone There you can tell they're not advertising I do the tax return right getting you the best refund in accordance with the law They've kind of skipped part of that part and they're just going to give you a big refund That seems like well that sounds like you're going to do something that that that taking positions that wouldn't be a justifiable type of positions. That's a little bit Scary, of course So you kind of want to you know avoid that because you are the one on the hook and even if they take that position Even if they say hey look these other people I took I did this and they already got their refund like right now It's they still could get audited right? It's like that's like that's like saying That that someone was speeding at 100 miles an hour in a 65 mile an hour freeway and totally looked the guy just did it right there There's no problem. Yeah, but if he gets a ticket It's going to cost him a lot. That's that's kind of how the law kind of works, right? They're not going to catch everyone But if if and when they do catch you the penalty is going to be high enough That it hurts, right? That's kind of that's kind of that's what they lost trying to basically do So ensure their preparer offers irse file the irse issues most refunds in fewer than 21 days For taxpayers who file electronically and choose direct deposit So they are of course trying to enforce or get people to file electronically and use the direct deposit thing Provide records and receipts good preparers ask to see these documents So you could prepare a tax return based on just what you tell them But obviously it would it would be a lot more likely for the return to be accurate If they have all your documentation like the w2s and the 1099s and so on and so forth if they don't And the information is inaccurate the return will most likely have a have a stop or get get processed late or something Understand the preparers credentials and qualifications and review their history for complaints or discrept disciplinary actions So obviously you can you can look at their credentialed agents If they're if they're cpa or the current cpa if they're attorney or the current attorney If they're an enrolled agent or the current enrolled agent And then of course you've got all the other things you can look at like yelp and all the other kind of stuff That's the kind of stuff that's a little bit more difficult to to pull from because you know, you again You've got a lot of weird people that you know, if you get mad at someone and you just Review bomb them or something which happens all the time Unfortunately, so I don't really know but at least you can at least you so but I think those I think those other resources are getting better too because because Well, hopefully but in any case at least you got the credentialing thing So never sign a blank or incomplete return taxpayers are responsible for for filing a complete and a correct tax return So so, you know, if they give you a blank page and tell you to sign a blank tax return That is uh, that's not a good sign. They have to complete the tax return before you sign it Review their tax return before signing it and ask questions is something that's not clear or appears inaccurate This is often something difficult for a lot of taxpayers because they feel Justifiably anybody would feel like I don't really know what I'm talking about, you know That's why I hired somebody But but you can get a general idea, of course on what the tax return is doing and so don't feel Bad asking basic what might seem basic questions to you about the tax return Because You know, that's just the way it is you're paying for someone to to help you to prepare the tax return and help you to understand What it is you're you're preparing And so you asking question is is part of that process Make sure any refund will go directly to the taxpayers bank account not into the preparers bank account So if they're taking part of your refund that's coming directly from the irs as part of payment or something That shouldn't be happening taxpayers should review the routing and bank account number on the Completed tax return and make sure it's accurate. Meaning it's going to your bank account ghost tax preparers warning signs By law anyone who is paid to prepare or assist in preparing federal tax returns must have a valid preparer tax Identification number. There's a link to that here paid preparers must sign and include their ptin on any tax return They prepare not signing a return is a red flag that the paid preparer May be looking to make a quick profit by promising a big refund or charging fees based on the size of the refund So again, a lot of times if you were to be a scamming tax Preparer you would say they would often Argue that they can get a bigger refund than others and then in order to not be on the hook They try they're going to not put their own They're not going to sign the tax return as the paid preparer Now because even if they do sign the tax return as a paid preparer Remember that that does not mean that you are not on the hook because the iris is still going to come after you But the iris does know that that who the paid preparer is As well and if they're doing something fraudulent or something They may take action on that but that's not going to fix your problem If your tax return was wrong if they don't put their information on the tax return as the paid tax preparer And they are a paid tax preparer That's a big sign That they that they they don't even support what it is they put on the tax return Because they're not willing to put the skin in the game, right? They're not willing to put their name on the on the return. And so that's not good Tax payers should avoid these unethical ghost tax return preparers how to prepare how to report Prepare or misconduct taxpayers can report prepare or misconduct to the irs using form 14157 complaint So there's a nice complaint form here if you want to complain tax return preparer if a taxpayer Suspects a tax return preparer filed or charged their tax return without their consent They should file form 14157 a tax return preparer fraud or miscontact affidavit Both these forms are available on the make a complaint about a tax return preparer page of irs.gov irs.gov irs.gov And there's links to that here links to all the other stuff. There'll be a link to this in the description