On account of the Internal Revenue Code's complexity, the tax return preparer is now a key link in the tax compliance process.  Help with completing the income tax return is regularly enlisted not only by the ordinary citizen, but by some IRS supervisors and at least one commissioner of internal revenue. Stolen identity tax fraud is a very vexing problem for the IRS and the public fisc, and, as noted previously at congressional hearings and by this author on these pages, tax return preparers can wreak significant damage when they use stolen identities to defraud the system for their own personal gain.  Identity theft committed by bad apples in the tax return preparer community remains a problem. Kevin Hatton is certainly no slouch.  He has achieved much during his 23 years with the Internal Revenue Service and is now the director of the IRS's E-file Provider Program management office.  In a direct and concrete way, he facilitates the filing of...(Read Full Post)