mr. mctigue? [inaudible] >> i don't think a microphone is on. >> can you hear me speak was yes. >> okay, thank you, mr. chairman and members of the committee. i'm pleased to be a today to discuss the quality of services provided by paid tax prepares to millions of taxpayers will on prepares to provide them with accurate and fully compliant tax returns. the irs has long recognized that hate prepares actions have an enormous impact on its ability to administer tax laws effectively and collect the revenue that funds the government. despite the importance of paid prepares and our tax system, irs is offered to regular paid prepares is limited to certain prepares as you've heard such as attorneys and certified public accountants. the majority, 55%, are known as an enrolled prepares and are not regulated by irs. in 2010, irs initiated steps to regulate unenrolled prepares but the court ruled the irs lacked the authority. in order to gain some insight into how unenrolled prepares actually perform, we devel

mr. mctigue, if they wanted to find it online, where can they go? caller: that would be gao.gov.e name of the study is paid prepare returns, in a limited study, preparers made significant errors. it's right on our main page. host: and that's jay mctigue. thank you very much. caller: you're welcome. thanks for having me. host: any takeway from that? guest: sure. the criticism is, only, they only did 19, 17 made mistakes. but then you look at the earlier study. they again did 19, and all 19 of them made mistakes. and then you look at a survey that the i.r.s. did in 2008, i believe it was and 60% of the paid tax preparers' returns had errors. strangely, only 50% of the tax returns that ordinary citizens did had errors. so if you take all of that together, you come to the conclusion that there is a problem here. host: this is joe from ashe, north carolina independent line. joe, good morning. caller: good morning. now, my father was a c.p.a. my brother is a c.p.a. my cousin's husband is a c.p.a. now, you blame the tax preparer h.r. block, come on in, be a tax preparer, and they give y