Comments Regarding Proposed Amendments to the Regulations
Governing Practice Before the Internal Revenue Service
(Title 31, Code of Federal Regulations, Subtitle A, Part 10)
April 23, 2001

Section 10.61  Conferences.

The proposed amendment to section 10.61(b) provides the opportunity for a practitioner to offer his or her consent to a voluntary censure, suspension or disbarment. The current regulations do not. The section 10.61(b) heading should be changed to include the word "disbarment." In addition, the same section provides for a practitioner to offer his or her consent to voluntary censure, suspension or disbarment or to "resign, as the case may be." The resignation portion appears deficient in two respects. First, it does not contemplate an offer of resignation, although any proposed resignation must be accepted by the Service, which implies that a practitioner can only offer to resign. Second, the proposal uses the phrase "as the case may be." This is a perplexing phrase and may indicate that resignation is available to all practitioners when, in fact, it only should be available to enrolled agents and enrolled actuaries. Both problems can be clarified by modest changes to the language.