Gov. John Carney signed the Taxpayer Protection Act into law in Delaware.
The Taxpayer Protection Act aims to help protect Delaware taxpayers and their tax returns by giving the state the resources to identify and stop bad tax preparers. According to Accounting Today, the law requires preparers to put their identification number of the prepared return. This will allow the state to identify a pattern of poorly prepared returns.
According to the IRS, about 60 percent of taxpayers use paid tax professionals to prepare their returns. However few laws protect taxpayers from tax preparers who are known to be unqualified and repeatedly submit incorrect tax materials
Tax preparer H&R Block praised the legislation.
“For many families in Delaware and across the country, the tax event is the largest and most important financial transaction of the year. This important new law is a good first step that will help protect Delaware taxpayers by giving the State the ability to stop identified bad preparers. We look forward to continuing to work with the Governor and legislature to prevent incompetent and/or unscrupulous preparers from entering the market by enacting Taxpayer Service Standards,” Block stated.
“The vast majority of paid tax preparers can take pride in their work to ensure that clients pay no more and no less tax than is due by law. Unfortunately, some abuse this privilege,” said Rick Geisenberger, secretary of the Delaware Department of Finance. “This new law increases taxpayer protection by ensuring that paid tax preparers are held to the highest standards of integrity and ethics, and bolstering the tools available to the Division of Revenue to detect and stop patterns of abuse by certain paid tax preparers that understate a taxpayer’s liability by taking unreasonable positions or engaging in reckless conduct.”
