St. Paul, MN - Today, the Minnesota House of Representatives advanced a bill (134-0) to regulate debt settlement service providers. Previously, the legislature enacted consumer protection to combat various scams that were claiming to cut in half money owed to the IRS. The fraudsters would direct consumers to pay the scammer and wait until the creditor accepted a settlement for half of the original outstanding amount. In many situations the scammer would take the money and disappear leaving the individual in a more dire financial situation.
In both 2009 and 2016 various financial institutions were exempted from the law, but enrolled agents were left out. Enrolled agents are professionals certified specifically to represent taxpayers before the Internal Revenue Service and help taxpayers settle debts with the IRS. There is an extensive process to become an enrolled agent and current law technically makes it illegal for enrolled agents to do this work.
This bill exempts enrolled agents from Minnesota’s debt settlement law.
Author of the bill, Rep. Andrew Carlson (DFL-Bloomington) released this statement:
“This bipartisan legislation provides an exemption to enrolled agents and their professional firms from the debt settlement services statutes, so that they can now legally represent taxpayers on tax audits.”
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