HOPE AND CHANGE: IRS to Mom and Pop: Drop Dead.

Doing your taxes sucks. Paying someone else to do your taxes sucks, too. But you know what sucks most of all? Having the person who does your taxes go out of business (or dramatically raise prices) thanks to an IRS power grab.

Last year, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) got into the business of licensing tax preparers. The IRS wasn’t granted the authority to do this by Congress, they just decided to go for it. At a time when unemployment is still awfully high, 350,000 people–many of whom are self-employers or own small businesses–will be hit by rules that axe their jobs or make it more difficult and expensive to keep their calculators clacking.

They don’t need no stinkin’ legal authority. Legal authority is for the little people.