AICPA Not on Board with Tax Strategy Patents

The American Institute of CPAs has asked Congress to restrict the issuing of patents for tax strategies/tax planning techniques. The statement criticizes patents for promoting exclusivity, threatening the integrity and increasing diffuculty in administering the tax system, mislead taxpayers into thinking that the patented technique was audit-proof and interfer with voluntary compliance with tax law. Though the report was willing to consider patents for tax computation software, the authors otherwise appeared to advocate a total ban on tax strategy patents.

Tax patents have previously been discussed on this and other tax-related blogs. I concur with the AICPA position on this issue.