Protecting Taxpayers from Ghost Preparers Act

This section would state that the Act may be cited as the Protecting Taxpayers from Ghost Preparers Act.

This section would rewrite the definition of return in section 6696(e)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code, the definition that determines what documents trigger the tax return preparer penalty rules. Under the rewritten definition, return would mean: any return of any tax imposed by the Internal Revenue Code; any administrative adjustment request under section 6227; any partnership adjustment tracking report under section 6226(b)(4)(A); and any other document purporting to be a return, request, or report described in those three categories. By reaching documents that merely purport to be a return, adjustment request, or tracking report, the new definition would extend the preparer penalty rules to improperly altered or falsified versions of these documents, not only to genuine ones. The amendment would take effect on the date this Act is enacted.

This section would amend section 6501(c)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code, which concerns the limitation period for tax assessments, by inserting the words by the taxpayer immediately after the word intent. This would narrow the intent element in that provision to the taxpayer's own intent, so that fraud committed by a preparer alone, without the taxpayer intending to evade tax, would not extend the limitation period for that taxpayer. The amendment would apply to assessments made or proceedings begun after the date this Act is enacted.

This section would redesignate subsection (f) of section 7508A of the Internal Revenue Code, the subsection added by the Disaster Related Extension of Deadlines Act, as subsection (g). This is a technical renumbering and would not by itself change what that subsection requires. The change would take effect as if it had been included in section 2(a) of the Disaster Related Extension of Deadlines Act, meaning it would apply retroactively to the same effective date as that earlier provision.