The General Assembly’s Government, Administration and Elections Committee has approved legislation requiring the licensing of tax preparers and facilitators.
The bill would create a State Board of Tax Practitioners, which would reside in the Secretary of the State’s office. The board would oversee: registration; licensure; continuing education; renewal; disclosure; and enforcement for non-credentialed commercial tax preparers.
Each commercial tax return preparer will pay an annual fee of $100 to the board to obtain a license. The proposed legislation also sets the required experience to be licensed as a commercial tax preparer.
Secretary of the State Denise Merrill, who proposed the legislation, said previously roughly 861,000 filers use tax preparation services in Connecticut. Nationally, around half of all returns were filed by unregulated preparers. If the national statistic is mirrored locally, that means around 400,000 filers are using unlicensed tax preparers.
The bill now goes to the House of Representatives for consideration.
