Paid tax preparers must pay an annual “fee” to the IRS if they help other people fill out and file their federal tax returns. The fee, paid by 2.8 million people, is currently $19.75, of which $11 goes to the IRS and $8.75 to the third-party contractor that processes the applications and renewals to give each preparer a Paid Tax Identification Number (PTIN). But it will soon drop by $1 to $18.75, according to a September 29 announcement. This is just the latest decrease: the PTIN fee was originally $64.25 per year starting in 2011, then reduced to $50.00 for 2015, $35.95 for 2020, $30.75 for 2022, $19.75 for 2023, and now $18.75.
Why is the IRS reducing this fee? In short, because the IRS keeps losing in court on it. The original PTIN fee was charged as part of a licensing program that was struck down in court in 2013, as part of a lawsuit (Loving v. IRS) brought by the Institute for Justice. But, while the IRS lost the program, it kept the fee, so three paid tax preparers (Adam Steele, Brittany Montrois, and myself) brought separate litigation to argue the fee is illegal and excessive. While we lost our argument on illegal in 2019, we won on our argument that the fee is excessive. The court in March 2025 ordered the IRS to refund $168,700,624 to cover the period through 2017, about 55% of what it collected during that time frame. The IRS and we are both appealing: the IRS arguing for less, us arguing for more.
Meanwhile, the IRS keeps lowering the fee in the hopes of making this case go away. That’s why the PTIN fee is seemingly the one fee in the federal government that goes down, as the IRS searches for the level that can’t be called excessive. Stay tuned.
Year | Preparer Tax Identification Number (PTIN) Fee |
2011 | $64.25 |
2012 | $64.25 |
2013 | $64.25 |
2014 | $64.25 |
2015 | $50.00 |
2016 | $50.00 |
2017 | $50.00 |
2018 | $50.00 |
2019 | $50.00 |
2020 | $35.95 |
2021 | $35.95 |
2022 | $30.75 |
2023 | $19.75 |
2024 | $19.75 |
2025 | $18.75 |