The Money Mustache Community
Learning, Sharing, and Teaching => Ask a Mustachian => Topic started by: ThreeCarbsNoGrains on November 05, 2018, 05:25:48 PM
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Hi everyone,
For all my working life I’ve filed my own taxes until this year. For 2017 taxes I paid a local reputable CPA firm to do my state and federal taxes. They’ve been awesome and are also handling an issue I had with the state DOR from a previous year. Now the CPA needs a Power of Attorney to discuss my taxes with the state DOR. This obviously sounds legitimate but I am still wary. I’m assuming the POA should be limited to taxes only. What should I look for in the document? What would you do in my situation? Thanks in advance.
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This doesn't raise any red flags to me. I worked in public accounting for a couple years. Many CPA firms ask clients for POA's. There is a standard Form 2848 that they may use. Also remember that the CPA's and the firm have licenses to maintain, so I highly doubt they'd so something wrong to threaten their good standing with the state.
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There's a standard form for the IRS (as mentioned above) - some states will accept it, some have their own version, and it will be limited to specific tax matters only. If you want them to deal with it for you, that's pretty much your only option short of putting them on a conference call with you so that they can hear what the agent has to say. It's really not a big deal but if you're nervous, you can always revoke the POA after your accountant is finished taking care of the issue.
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CPAs need to do it all the time.
Form 2848 with the IRS is specifically limited to tax matters. The state will either use 2848 or have their own tax POA.
So I guess what you should watch out for is if your CPA hands you something other than what is very clearly a tax POA form.
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Thank you all for the responses! You have been very helpful!