The New York City of Department of Consumer Affairs recently did a sweep of tax preparers. They inspected 850 locations and wrote 1,000 violations for around $1 million in fines. Around one third of all locations visited had at least one violation.

The biggest source of the fines was from refund anticipation loans and client fees. In general the loans have very high interest rates. Many locations failed to disclose the actual interest rates. The second area of fines was for not disclosing the total cost of the return.

It would be interesting to know how much of the problem was from EAs or CPAs. I would wager that the problems were largely from the tax preparation industry that survives on the high interest refund loans that come close to usury. They can charge less than a CPA but make it up on the loan.

When you are ready for an accountant to handle your taxes then we are ready to help you out.