2007-03-08 12:05:20 · 4 answers · asked by Michael 1 in Business & Finance ➔ Taxes ➔ United States
A taxpreparer has no legal liability for any tax return that they prepared. Only the tax payer has legal responsablity for the taxes even if the preparer makes the mistake.
When signing a return only thing the preparer is signing is that to the best of their knoweldge all information on the return is correct.
The taxpreparer is only liabile for outright acts of fraud. The IRS will also investagate any preparer who gets a lot of audits.
If you are confortable in doing tax returns, feel free to help your friend, but do yourself and your friend a favor and when in the slightest doubt, look it up. All the best tax preperares I know will keep a tax quick finder on their desk. The IRS also writes good publications.
2007-03-09 03:04:55 · answer #1 · answered by jks_mi 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Only if you sign the tax form. There's a line at the bottom where a tax professional will sign off on the form along with the tax payor. If you make a mistake, you can be held liable.
If only the tax payor signs, then they'll get in trouble if you make a mistake - and they won't be able to sue you succesfully, because the IRS doesn't buy "I didn't know" as an excuse.
I'm an accountant and I actually point people towards TurboTax, because I'm not a tax accountant.
2007-03-08 20:34:25 · answer #2 · answered by LifesAMystery 3 · 0⤊ 1⤋
If you do them wrong, yes.
2007-03-08 20:12:57 · answer #3 · answered by redunicorn 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
no,but they can if you are wrong!
2007-03-08 20:12:41 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋