“I first became aware of IJ when its attorneys successfully argued the Loving tax preparer case in 2012, a decision that was upheld by the US District Court of appeals in 2014. IJ argued on behalf of three independent self-employed paid tax preparers who had sued the IRS over its earlier registration and testing requirements. The case was a classic David-and-Goliath contest between the ‘little guy’ and a federal bureaucracy. It had personal meaning to me, although I was not working as an independent tax preparer myself.
“At that time, I was working as a part-time tax preparer at a ‘big box’ tax preparer (H&R Block), which was post-retirement employment for me that lasted for 11 years after leaving full-time employment as an accountant. I believed that the IRS’s requirements for paid tax preparers would do little or nothing to address the ‘tax gap’ or tax fraud that was being blamed on tax preparers. I was also aware that a former H&R Block CEO, Mark Ernst, had been hired by IRS to implement the new preparer registration and testing procedures, and that a prime motive was to drive small ‘mom & pop’ tax preparers out of business to benefit Block itself. IJ successfully argued that IRS had no statutory basis for implementing the new preparer requirements, a decision upheld on appeal. IRS then dropped the entire program. In the intervening years, I have followed IJ’s work on civil forfeitures and other important libertarian issues. It is important to me that IJ remain well-supported to fight these continuing battles on behalf of Americans, and I am happy to designate a bequest intention to support this work into the future.”
– Jane Johnson, Ventura, CA