The US tax laws are very complex, even for low income individuals and families.  Accordingly, each filing season tens of millions of taxpayers turn to individuals and entities that prepare US and state tax returns for a fee.  Yet the quality of these return preparation services vary widely, and oversight of the industry is patchwork at best.  This leaves taxpayers vulnerable to incompetent return preparation at best and scams and fraud at the worst.

Since 2024, the Center for Taxpayer Rights (CTR) has been conducting a comprehensive review of the current environment of federal tax return preparation.  The review incorporates two projects.  The first project examines the IRS’s strategy for ensuring volunteer and commercial tax preparation is competent, professional, ethical, and accessible, and to combat fraud facilitated or committed by return preparers.  It also incorporates a study of the different approaches adopted by tax agencies internationally and at the state level to address these issues. 

The second project consists of mystery shopper visits to commercial non-credentialed return preparers during the early 2025 filing season to identify points of weakness in the current system, and to test the viability of a consumer information campaign so taxpayers can protect themselves from unscrupulous or incompetent preparers.  The goal of the project is to make informed, actionable recommendations for how the IRS can ensure the quality of return preparation in today’s environment, better detect problematic preparers and intervene quickly, thereby protecting taxpayers from errors and preparer fraud.

On this page we provide comprehensive resources for exploring this topic, as well as videos and slides from our Tax Chat! series on IRS Return Preparer Strategy.   Included on this page is a link to the IRS’s 2020 Service Return Preparer Strategy which was approved at the highest levels but never implemented.  The Center for Taxpayer Rights obtained a copy of this strategy through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

The IRS Return Preparer Strategy Project is made possible by the generous support of the Laura and John Arnold Foundation.