There is an old saying in politics that says you can choose between being a participant or a victim of legislative and regulatory issues.
Last week, Maryland CPAs once again chose to be participants in the legislative process.
Pictured at right are several of our members breaking bread with two Maryland delegates (on the right) at our luncheon following the morning visits with lawmakers. Despite the ice storm – over fifty CPAs made it and let the legislators know our agenda.
In addition to the numerous personal visits our CPAs made with lawmakers, we had to run to make several hearings that afternoon.
We testified in support of the Comptroller e-filing bill SB 96 before the Senate Budget & Taxation Committee and attended a briefing by the DLLR on the implementation of the Maryland Tax Preparer Act of 2008 (SB 817 from the prior year) before the House Economic Matters CommitteeThis was the bill that we successfully amended to exempt CPAs and their staff from this new Maryland requirement – see our post from last year.
Since the e-filing bill is new, we thought we would elaborate on our position:
Why are we supporting the e-filing bill?
The MACPA Board of Directors voted unanimously to support this for the following reasons:
- The Comptroller agreed to not requiring e-filing for five years after working with us through a series of townhall meetings with MACPA members
- Despite our efforts to inform and encourage e-iling, Maryland ranks 32nd out of the 41 states who have e-filing in place
- Eighteen (18) states already require e-filing and more are expected this year
- The bill has an exemption for taxpayers who do not want to e-file
- The bill has a two year phase in (over 200 returns for the first year and 100 returns thereafter)
- It will save Marylandmoney through the efficiencies provided
- The playing field is more level for our localpractitioners due to the Maryland Tax Preparers Act of 2008 that we successfully amended.
You can see our full 2009 legislative agenda here