Week 2 Sample Answer (You can’t use this regulation in your assignemt)

1. State the administrative agency which controls the regulation. Explain why this agency and your

proposed regulation interests you (briefly). Will this proposed regulation affect you or the business in

which you are working? (10 points) If so, how? Submit a copy of the proposed regulation along with your responses (5 points)

to these five questions. The proposed regulation can be submitted as either a separate Word document

(.doc) or Adobe file (.pdf). This means you will submit two attachments to the Week 2 Dropbox: (1) a

Word doc with the questions and your answers and (2) a copy of the proposed regulation you used for

this assignment. (Total 15 points)

1. The agency in control of this regulation is the Department of the Treasury. The reason that I chose this regulation is because I plan on being a Certified Public Accountant (CPA) and will be affected by this regulation, especially as I work under CPAs when I begin my career. As of now, this ruling doesn’t affect me. However, as soon as I am employed in the accounting field it will, if I am preparing taxes that is.

2. Describe the proposal/change. (10 points)
3. The regulation I chose, REG–138637–07, essentially calls for any paid tax preparer to pass a test and obtain a PTIN, or preparer tax identification number. This is being done so that whoever prepares the taxes, whether they sign them or not, is identified in case there are inaccuracies found on the form. As of right now, it is CPAs and lawyers that are the ones who sign the tax forms are considered liable for their employees’ actions. This regulatory change is intended to enforce a liability on the individual preparers as well in an effort to promote less forgery, fraud, and lying.

3. Write the public comment which you would submit to this proposal. If the proposed regulation

deadline has already passed, write the comment you would have submitted. Explain briefly what you

wish to accomplish with your comment. (10 points)

3. Dept. of Treasury,

It is my opinion that this proposed regulatory change is unnecessary and erroneous. CPAs and tax lawyers are held to professional standards and have to pass rigorous examinations to get to their positions. These are the individuals who you are claiming do not need to pass an exam to obtain a PTIN because they already are qualified. These are also the individuals who oversee each preparer’s work and criticize and correct it. To require every paid tax preparer, an estimated 1.2 million, to pass an exam and according to the IRS website pay $64.25 for it, is fairly outrageous. There are already laws and regulations in place to prevent and strongly discourage preparers from preparing fraudulent tax returns. There also seems to be insufficient evidence that this is necessary or will be beneficial. The accounting industry is heavily regulated, as it should be. However, this additional regulation overlaps with existing ones and will provide little if any benefit to the Dept. of the Treasury in avoiding tax fraud.

4. Provide the “deadline” by which the public comment must be made. (If the date has already passed,

please provide when the deadline was). (5 points)

4. According to http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=226697,00.html, we have until October 7, 2010 to submit comments on this proposed regulation.

5. a)If the proposal passes, identify and explain the five legal theories you could use in an attempt to have the regulation declared invalid and overturned in court. (15 points)

5b The following five theories or grounds on which a regulation can be challenged are…

5b) Which of these challenges would be the best way to challenge the regulation you selected for this assignment if you wanted to have the regulation overturned and why? (10 points)

5c. The theory I would use to challenge this regulation is that…

Grand Total Available 65