The Internal Revenue Service reminded practitioners that they should not include advertisements for their services when sending out W-2 forms.
“A recent inquiry sent to the Issue Management Resolution System concerned restrictions on including practitioner advertising with Forms W-2 and other information returns,” the IRS said in an email to payroll professionals Wednesday. “As a reminder, no additional enclosures, advertising, promotional material, or a quarterly or annual report are permitted.”
The IRS then linked to IMRS Issue 12-0001531 for more information.
“Even a sentence or two on the year-end statement describing new services offered by the payer is not permitted,” the IRS noted. “Logos, slogans and advertising may be used on any permissible enclosure such as a check or account statement, other than information returns and payee copies. See the general instructions of the information return for a list of permissible enclosures.”
7 Comments
IRS comes down on the small guy again. Jackson Hewitt has coupons as part of the W-2! Chicago area
Posted by: john P | April 9, 2013 11:48 AM
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Sure remind everyone after all the w-2's are out so those 3 tax services can get all their inserts out. Gee who got paid off. Just to show you how good liberty tax is. They sent me a client that they. Couldn't do because he had a part year New York return and a part year Virginia. Too tuff for them and they probably would have charged $500
Posted by: Alan93 | March 9, 2013 5:54 AM
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They only reminded practitioners, just in the same manner they remind them how they should not produce fraudulent tax returns full of imaginary tax deductions. Their reminders and actions are jokes for the last 15-20 yars, lol
Posted by: gbrnjic@yahoo.com | March 8, 2013 10:52 AM
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A fine time for IRS to "remind" practitioners - AFTER all W-2's and information returns have already been sent out with these ads! And it has been going on for years, and IRS is just NOW getting around to this?
Posted by: olivertax | March 8, 2013 10:39 AM
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And the Turbo Tax statements with every bank statement, 1099 and online inquiry?
Posted by: 2Old | March 7, 2013 11:15 AM
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So when will the lawsuits against IRS start on this subject?
Posted by: taxking | March 7, 2013 8:55 AM
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This notice obviously did not make it to the hundreds or thousands of private companies that had W2's issued with H&R Block / Liberty / Hewitt enclosures or even attached directly to the W2 itself.
Posted by: theeshop | March 7, 2013 8:31 AM
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