Interesting article and comments regarding the IRS’s recently enacted policy of charging us preparers for the annual use of a PTIN, which used to be free.  It’s great to see other tax practitioners who are not afraid to publicly disagree with IRS practices. 

 CPAs Sue IRS over PTIN Fees

The main concern isn’t the amount of money IRS is charging for the PTIN, which is actually a small fraction of what we already pay to maintain our CPA licenses; but the increasing control IRS is trying to exercise over our relationship with our clients in regard to helping them legally reduce their tax burdens. 

Proposal to Let IRS Prepare Tax Returns Raises Concern as D.C. Looks Under the Cushions 

What a great deal for taxpayers.  They can save a few hundred dollars in preparation fees in exchange for paying thousands more in taxes.  Can anyone think of a bigger conflict of interest than allowing IRS to calculate your taxes?

New Online Registration System for Paid Tax Return Preparers Is Now Available –  The IRS’s online application system for all of us to obtain PTINs is now active.  Even those of us who already have PTINs need to renew them and pay the new fee of $64.25.

I decided to give it a spin to see how easy it was to use and if the promise was true that we could keep our existing PTINs.  In typical government fashion, it was less efficient than it needed to be. Rather than allow those us with PTINs to start from there, I had to enter my SSN and everything else from scratch, as if I hadn’t been preparing tax returns professionally for the past 35 years.  I had to type in the same address info twice. I entered my nine digit zipcode, which it accepted.  Then, a few screens later, it said the zip was in the wrong format and I had to go back to both address screens and change them to five digits.  It asked for my FEIN and CAF numbers, but not my existing PTIN.  My full CAF number wouldn’t fit in the allowed space, so I had to remove a zero from the middle.  I’ll see if that screws this up.  They don’t accept American Express, my favorite credit card; so I had to use a MasterCard.

The website estimates 20 minutes to fill it in, and that was about right.  I submitted everything and paid the fee on 9/28/10.  Now I’ll see how long it takes for my new or renewed PTIN to arrive.

Update – On 10/15/10, I received a postcard from IRS via  snail mail, saying that an online account had been created in my name.  Today (10/24/10), I logged in to my IRS.gov account and it showed my PTIN number as the same one I had been using for several years and an expiration date of 10/31/2011.  When I went in to check my details, I noticed that they had fixed the CAF section to allow the proper number of digits; so I added back the zero I had left out of the original application.