This past year an outside special interest group attempted to gain unprecedented control and access over the entire E-File Tax industry begining in Alabama.  This new special interest stems from modifications in the VITA Grant Program which now provides the Special Interest with the potential to gain millions of dollars in matching funds from the Omnibus Appropriations Act enhanced in February of 2009.  The new "unlimited" funding mechanism along with the additional $154 billion dollar stimulus program is attracting a new breed of Special Interest seeking to exploit the VITA (Volunteer Tax Assistance Program) tax programs both in Alabama and across the country.

The group who led this initiative recently took over the VITA tax operations in Alabama and began an all out sabotaging campaign to destroy the image and business of every E-File Tax Office in the State.  Immediately following this propaganda campaign, they set out to pass their own legislative agenda (copied from the "Acorn Refund Anticipation Act") & state licensing board where they would be guaranteed a controlling interest on the board and be completely exempt from having to pay the fees or follow the same rules they were attempting to impose on the business owner operators in Alabama. 

Despite our consistent attempts to work with them and their lobbyist they were unwilling to allow the board to be constructed of industry related parties who would actually be affected by the new laws and fees.  All other licensing boards in the state of Alabama are composed of a majority of people from within that industry who have to follow the rules and pay the fees they enforce.  In this case the board members would have all been exempt from paying the fees and following the same rules they would have been looking to enforce.  Additionally they continued to keep language in the bill that would allow them an opportunity to pay various other groups including those related to them with funds from the fees paid into the licensing board. Initially they specifically wrote the bill where they could use proceeds from the fees paid to promote their own tax operations thus allowing them to gain hundreds of thousands of dollars in matching grant funds.  They maintained language in the bill that would have allowed them the ability to adjust the direction of those funds and would have also allowed them to remove other board members at their own discretion.

Tax office owners in the state banded together and formed NITPA in order to protect the Independent business owners in the industry.  On May 14^th NITPA successfully defended the industry and the rights of every business owner in America when they prevented this unjust and unprecedented Senate Bill and its proposed licensing board from being passed into law.    Join independent tax office owners throughout the U.S. who share a common interest in protecting the rights of private business owners in the E-File Tax Preperation Industry who are banding together as members of NITPA, the National Independent Tax Preparers Association.  NITPA is a non-profit membership organization funded by tax office owners like yourself.