mr. alban, welcome. >> thank you, chairman wyden. and ranking member hatch, the other members of the committee. congress should not give the irs additional power over tax preparers by forcing them to get an irs license before they can assist taxpayers with her tax returns. tax preparers are already regulated by numerous federal statutory requirements imposing both civil and criminal penalties for everything from failing to keep a list of the returns they are prepared for the past three years to actual tax fraud. tax preparers are also required to register with the irs to obtain an individualized number known as a ptin so they must include on every return they're prepared so that the irs can track and analyze their return. these tools already provide the irs with what it needs to identify, track, and penalize the few bad apples without unnecessarily burdening the vast majority of law-abiding prepares. i have three main critiques a preparer licensed as bad public policy followed by a few recommended solutions that are superior to licen

i heard a discussion for mr. alban about the cost heard of not heard complaints about oregon's cost or things of this nature. there are other lessons from the standpoint of oregon's experience for the irs. >> the cost and oregon -- the costs in oregon are very reasonable. because we require education, we have a lot of resources in the state that provide cost-effective education, rather than spending two or three or $400 for give education, you can get education to other resources . education is not an issue. a registration -- the registration fees are very affordable, even for small business. i had a larger business in years stillnd paid those and managed to keep my head above water with the business, so it is not a concern. we have wondered why it has taken the nation so long -- we are always -- >> we are always too logical. one of the things that concerns me about some of these questions , with respect to having minimum competence and the like, is those who are opposed say we already have these tough standards. it se

mr. alban, are you there? let's try him again in just a bit.t as far as the discussion is concerned, we can talk about that in a little bit. going back to tax reform a little bit, is it not that -- you said it was difficult. is there political appetite to try to make changes to the code? >> i honestly don't know what the appetite is right now, but i would say that getting, you know things are not moving at an expeditious fashion on capitol hill in any corridor. so to say that this particular area would be one that would move quickly i think would probably not be correct. host: let's try dan again. are you there? caller: yes, i am. good morning. host: good morning. tell us about the institute of institute. what is that? caller: it's a libertarian public interest law firm. we litigate demace four main areas to protect people's constitutional rights. we litigate cases involving property rights, economic liberty, free speech, and school choice. and the case that we brought against the i.r.s. regarding tax preparer licensing is one of our economic l