Can Your CPA or Tax Attorney Report You to the IRS? The Answer Will Surprise You.

🔴 LIVE — Wednesday May 6 at 7:30 AM EDT With Keith Redmond & John Richardson (@expatriationlaw) Anthony E. Parent, Esq. | Parent & Parent LLP | IRSMedic.com THE SHORT ANSWER: NO. AND IF THEY THREATEN TO, THAT MAY BE A FEDERAL CRIME. Here is something the tax industry does not want you to know: IRC §7216 makes it a federal crime for a tax preparer to disclose your tax return information to a third party — including the IRS — without your written consent. The penalty: up to $1,000 fine and one year in prison per violation. There is also a separate civil penalty of $250 per incident under IRC §6713. So when a tax firm threatens to report a client to the IRS unless the client agrees to their resolution plan — that is not a legitimate professional obligation. That is a potential violation of a federal criminal statute being used as a weapon to coerce a taxpayer into a fee arrangement. That is the topic of this session. WHAT WE ARE COVERING ▶ THE THREE LAWS THAT PROTECT YOU — and that most taxpayers and even most tax professionals have never read: IRC §7216 (criminal), IRC §6713 (civil), and Circular 230. We will read the actual statutory language on screen so you can verify every word. ▶ WHAT YOUR CPA CAN AND CANNOT DO WITH YOUR INFORMATION — The difference between a CPA withdrawing from representation (always permitted) and a CPA threatening to disclose your information to coerce compliance with their plan (potentially criminal). These are not the same thing and the industry treats them as if they are. ▶ ATTORNEY-CLIENT PRIVILEGE VS. TAX PRACTITIONER PRIVILEGE — Why these are not the same thing, why the difference matters enormously when things go wrong, and why a law firm is the only structure in which a true, absolute duty of confidentiality exists. A CPA's notes can be subpoenaed. An attorney's cannot. ▶ THE INDUSTRY'S FUNDAMENTAL CONFLICT OF INTEREST — Keith Redmond's core observation: the tax industry always recommends compliance, even when they have no idea what compliance actually requires — and even when "compliance" is not in the client's best interest. The industry's business model depends on fear. A client who understands their actual enforcement risk is a client who might not need the expensive resolution plan. ▶ WHY EXPATS AND INTERNATIONAL TAXPAYERS ARE MOST VULNERABLE — Geographically isolated. Uncertain about their compliance status. Often approaching advisors from a position of fear. Unable to easily get a second opinion. Some practitioners have learned to exploit exactly that vulnerability. We are going to name what that exploitation looks like — and the legal framework that prohibits it. ▶ THE PEOPLE WHO RAISE THEIR HANDS GET HURT MOST — Their act of good faith becomes leverage against them. We have seen this firsthand. We are going to talk about it honestly. ▶ WHAT TO DO IF THIS HAS HAPPENED TO YOU — we will share some answers. THE LEGAL FRAMEWORK IN PLAIN ENGLISH IRC §7216 is a blanket prohibition. A tax preparer cannot disclose your information to the IRS — or anyone else — without your written consent. There are narrow exceptions: responding to a court order, responding to an IRS request during an investigation, reporting a crime the client is about to commit. Disagreeing with a client's decision to seek a second opinion is not one of them. Wanting the client to pay for their resolution plan is not one of them. Circular 230 governs professional conduct. It imposes duties of competence, diligence, and loyalty. It does not authorize a practitioner to use a client's confidential information as leverage in a fee dispute. The AICPA Confidential Client Information Rule requires written consent before any disclosure. No consent, no disclosure. And for attorneys: the Model Rules of Professional Conduct impose an absolute duty of confidentiality. An attorney who threatens to report a client to the IRS is not exercising a professional obligation. They are threatening to commit a bar violation. The solution is not more compliance. The solution is informed clients who know their rights, understand the law, and choose advisors who will tell them the truth — including when the answer is that their situation is not as dangerous as the industry wants them to believe. That is what IRSMedic does. That is what this show is. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ JOIN LIVE ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Wednesday May 6 | 7:30 AM EDT If you or someone you know has been threatened by a tax practitioner — share this before Wednesday. They need to know this exists. — Anthony E. Parent, Esq. Parent & Parent LLP | IRSMedic.com Wallingford, Connecticut | (203) 269-6699