Tax volunteers not accountable for costly errors

[unhappycamper]

Tax volunteers not accountable for costly errors
By Sandra Jontz, Stars and Stripes
Mideast edition, Thursday, February 5, 2009

Users beware, warns Daniel Wise.

Thanks to a mistake that Wise says was made by a tax volunteer at a military base in Hanau, Germany, he owes the Internal Revenue Service $5,500. And because the volunteer can’t be held liable for the tax return, Wise is responsible for paying the bill alone.

A random IRS examination uncovered the error in his 2006 returns, and recalculations mean that Wise now owes not just the principle unpaid taxes, he said, but interest, fees and penalties, although he is seeking to have the IRS waive the additional costs.

"It is a wonderful thing that the U.S. government offers soldiers and civilians free things such as legal support and tax assistance, but sometimes it can actually cost you," said Wise, who had been taking advantage of the free service since 1999.

The volunteer tax preparer in Hanau neglected to include his wife’s foreign income information on what could be a complicated filing — a detail that also escaped his review.


Rest of article at: http://www.stripes.com/article.asp?section=104&article=60490