Transcript of the above video: 

If you notice the thumbnail in this video, that is a scene from the movie The Lord of the Rings. Now it's making a memetic joke, a common memetic joke. It's kind of a known meme now, this Gandalf where he's saying, "I'm not trying to help you, I'm trying to rob you". Because in the movie what he actually says is, "I'm not trying to rob you, I'm trying to help you". He says I am not some conjurer that, I'll put a link in the description below to this scene with Gandalf what he actually said, he said, " I'm trying to help you". The point of the meme is it is reversing the lines to say, "hey" again the funny part is, "I seem like I'm trying to help you, but I'm actually trying to rob you." Now again, let me preface this by also saying I'm not saying anybody is robbing anyone. That said, I felt this meme was especially pertinent to this issue of “agency” and what I refer to and what the founders in the old pre-revolutionary colonial days of the United States, called “stamp-pimps” which are people that sort of quasi-legitimately, or completely illegally in the case of Thailand, come around and start espousing foreign tax notions in an effort to stir up business to get people to file possibly tax returns they don't need to file. Now again, I have never said and I'm not dying on any hills as to any one-size-fits-all analysis regarding tax. We have tax people here in the office; they assess individual cases, and they make determinations based on those assessments as to what folks need to do in order to maintain tax compliance. But that said, you need to understand that one) I'm not dying on that hill that there is sort of an either or to all of this. I have said from the get-go, it is all based on the underlying facts in the given case. 

Now that being said, it is my opinion that these tax Stamp-Pimps are here in Thailand to specifically subvert the sovereignty of this country and basically manipulate our tax system here, and that is my problem. But that said, I've been getting into this, not getting into it, but people have been bringing up these issues related to ‘agency’ and they're like, "oh no, these people aren’t agents of the IRS, these people are our agents, they work for us." They may be able to be employed and work for you, but they are agents of the IRS. Let me get into the analysis because this doublespeak is leading to a similar situation that is elucidated in the thumbnail to this video, and that is namely perhaps it's not overt chicanery, but it is allowing people to rely on conventional wisdom regarding legal terminology, that may not be in line with the actual legal fact, with the actual legal principles that underlie a given word, and that word is Agent, and the doublespeak around this word is what is really bothering me. 

So I have thought of making this video for a while now, but to go ahead and cite, let's go over here to irs.gov the IRS's own website, let's go over here irs.gov, under the heading: Understanding tax return preparer credentials and qualifications. Quoting directly: "Any tax professional with an IRS preparer tax identification number (PTIN) is authorized to prepare federal tax returns" - First of all that's a misnomer. They made up the PTIN some years ago. Attorneys can still advise and assist with tax matters before IRS. We're not necessarily bound to get a PTIN. Now that being said, for mass filers you need to go ahead and get a P10. But that said, again IRS spends in my opinion a lot of time being intentionally obfuscatory regarding their own language and their own practices. That said, quoting further: "However, tax professionals have differing levels of skills, education and expertise." I love that too. They like to frame this as if their own people are far more qualified than any of us out here. As if I am an attorney; 17 years with a license, 3 years of a freaking law degree but no, no I'm not as qualified as some guy that went through their testing program, okay. And this is the government saying that they can create these people, okay. It's really important to understand the differences here, to understand the underlying notion of agency.

In a situation where Courts are created, for example right after the founding of the United States, specifically 1789, after the promulgation of the Constitution - and yes I understand there were Republics before that from 1776 to 1789, and the Articles of Confederation - a lot of Americans don't really understand that - but beginning in 1789 we had the Constitution we now have. After the promulgation of Article 3 which created the Supreme Court, one of the first acts of the first Congress was to pass legislation regarding the creation of the Judiciary, okay. These are like what we now know as the Circuit Courts, the Appeals Courts, the Trial Courts. They operate under Article 3, so they can create those judges. Creating Courts, you can create Attorneys who have an Attorney-Client privilege to their clients, while at the same time having certain duties to the Court, but the Attorney is bound to the client not to the Court, as we'll get into here, they love playing with this term "agent". They throw this term "enrolled" on there as if that somehow changes the legal import or the legal substance of the word agent. As you will see, they created this within their own bureaucracy and are claiming that now they are somehow akin to Attorneys. Within their own framework they may be right, because they can create whatever they want within IRS with regard to the people that deal with them, I guess, although they don't have any choice when it comes to dealing with things like Attorneys. But again, they can choose to create agents but understand and this is the fundamental misconception here, these are agents of the IRS okay. They're not a Court, okay. It is the bureaucracy. They created their own agents; they have set out rules under which those agents can operate when dealing back with them, their principal. And that is the misconception that is not fully understood and is fully articulated in my opinion if hyperbolically, as I am not claiming anyone is robbing anybody, but there is a level of disingenuousness here and it comes from the implication that the agent is an agent of the person that they are liaising with in order to liaise with the IRS when the fact of the matter is they are agents of the IRS and I will get into the implications of that in a moment. 

That said, quoting further: "An important difference in the types of practitioners is "representation rights." No, the important difference is whether or not you are an agent of the government, i.e. the IRS itself, or the person you are dealing with? Now you may be in a waived conflict of interest relationship wherein you are acting as agent for both, but that agent, that enrolled agent still has underlying duties to their principal, the IRS. Now that said, quoting further, and I'm sweating here, so I'll go ahead and clean off, but quoting further: "Unlimited representation rights: Enrolled agents, Certified Public Accountants, and Attorneys have unlimited representation rights before the IRS." Well one, again they're conflating that to make that sound like Attorneys and CPAs are exactly the same as enrolled agents. They aren't. Quoting further: "Tax professionals with these credentials may represent their clients on any matters including audits payment/collection issues, and appeals." Now again, regarding this doublespeak that I keep hearing, "oh they're not real agents"! Then why are they using the term "agent"? The term agent has a legal meaning, a precise one, okay. Governments don't go around espousing legal terminology willy-nilly for nothing. Whatever, that's just not how it works. 

That said, quoting further: "Enrolled Agents - Licensed by the IRS." They are granted a license to act as their agent. Quoting further: "Enrolled agents are subject to a suitability check and must pass a three-part Special Enrollment Examination." So that is the enrolled part to become the IRS's agent. Quoting further: "Which is a comprehensive exam that requires them to demonstrate proficiency in federal tax planning, individual tax return preparation, and representation." I notice they don't say anything about understanding of being an underlying law, just basically these people are private bureaucrats. You're not dealing with somebody that understands the underlying law and before anybody says, "oh it's easier just do that and things", I have been in situations where I've been dealing with bureaucrats and fundamentally change the outcome from citing the actual law, not acting like a boot licking stamp-pimp to the IRS. Quoting further: "They must complete 72 hours of continuing education every 3 years. Learn more about the Enrolled Agent Program." Neato.

But the point I'm trying to make with this is whatever their own internal qualifications for creating an agent is, that's irrelevant to you the lay person, or to anybody in the public. The fundamental issue is agent. So let's go over here to law.cornell.edu. Agent: define: an agent is a person authorized to act on behalf of another person. The party an agent is authorized to act for is known as the principal." So again, IRS licenses people to act as their agent for them the principal, IRS. But the terminology and the way that they have sort of framed it, makes people think that they're acting exclusively as an agent for people in the public. No, that is not the case. Quoting further: "A principal-agent relationship can either be intentionally created or created by implication through one's actions." So understand, there's both explicit - which by the way under the rules of evidence, the Federal rules of evidence in the United States - statements by a party opponent can always be used against a party opponent and the Court must take judicial notice of utterances of the Government itself. The Government is itself saying they licensed their agents here. These are their agents. Now they have terms under which again they may be able to waive some of the agency-principal obligations in favour if you will of these outsiders, but they are still an agent for the IRS. You are talking to the IRS. You can make an argument - especially back in the United States, here in Thailand I don't think they have any place at all - but back in the United States you can make an argument for Enrolled Agents, people refer stuff over to them; I have referred stuff to Enrolled Agents in the past, okay. That doesn't mean I think that they get to come over here to Thailand and subvert our sovereignty here. That said, quoting further. Now this is from merriam-webster.com. Agent. Now I'm quoting: "One who is authorized to act for" - and this is really important because this is the crux of agency - "act for or in the place of another". As I have discussed, this is basic Business Organizations in second year law school, at least it was for me. Agents and Principals can be drawn together because as a point of fact they are effectively one and the same. Again quoting: “or in place of another.” That said, let me just quote the whole thing again: "One who is authorized to act for or in place of another such as a representative, emissary or official of a government." - I state that again - "official of a government". 

As I've stated in other videos, one of my major problems with this is that these people are by their own admission Agents of the IRS okay, and they are here in Thailand attempting to unduly influence Thai Tax Law and Policy notwithstanding the restricted occupations, that is illegal to do that here, and as I'll get into in other videos, this sovereignty issue is not something small, okay. That said, back to agency directly, again quoting further, law.cornell.edu, under Agency. Actual Authority. Quoting further: "Actual Authority is an agent's power to act on behalf of a principal because such power was expressly or impliedly conferred. Express actual authority is when a principal directly tells the agent that they have the authority to take certain, and I think I mean "actions". Okay. Again for all of this smoke screen they put up regarding their terms to become an Enrolled Agent, again quoting directly: "Principal directly tells the agent that they have authority to take certain actions." Quoting again: "because such power was expressly or impliedly conferred." And again, they can get express authority regarding certain things. So you can be an Agent or even a Special agent - which we have a lot of framework for that in the sort of FBI context - but again agents are agents. It doesn't matter how they define themselves; it doesn't matter their own criteria for naming their own agents. Agents are what they are. Again, quoting further: "Agency law is a common law doctrine controlling relationships between agents and principals. A principal-agent relationship is created when the agent is given authority to act for the principal. An agreement made by an agent is binding on the principal."  Usually. Well actually all the time. Again, this thing kind of cuts off here as binding on, it's binding on the principal. Now that's one of the reasons why they have limited these agents’ abilities because they don't want them putting IRS on the hook for debts or other things. That's one. The other thing is it creates this smoke screen wherein you are in a situation where you think someone, their sole purpose is to try to help you, and in the case of an Attorney we are bound by certain ethical rules to our clients, whereas enrolled agents aren't bound by any of that. And in fact, they are expressly agents of the IRS. Now they may have certain rules under which they operate in that capacity vis a vis their principal, but understand the underlying relationship. They are an agent of a foreign government tax authority, and I question why they are here. Again, why don't these people have official passports in Thailand; they're an agent literally, expressively, of the IRS. If they were an agent of the FBI, wouldn't they have to be here with some kind of extra-credential besides a standard passport? Moreover, as I have discussed in other videos this is an express violation of the restricted occupations - we've gone into that in great detail - and it violates Thai law regarding sovereignty, and how outside power should not infringe on Thai sovereignty, okay; we have discussed that at length. Trump mentioned that in his own Executive Order rescinding OECD, so I don't know what these people are doing but understand what an agent is and stop living in this fairy tale world that these things are one thing, when they are in fact another.