# Plain Language Summary: The Filer Voter Act

This bill makes tax return preparers responsible for helping people register to vote. Essentially, when you go to get your taxes done—whether at a tax preparation office or online—the person or company preparing your taxes would be required to make voter registration forms available to you. The idea is to catch people at a moment when they're already interacting with the government system and give them an easy opportunity to register or update their voter registration.

The bill applies to most professional tax preparers, but there are some exceptions. Very small operations that prepare fewer than 100 tax returns per year don't have to participate. For people who meet with a tax preparer in person at an office, the preparer just needs to display voter registration forms visibly in their office. For people using online tax preparation services, the preparer needs to include a clickable link to voter registration forms or their state's online registration website prominently on the screen. Importantly, tax preparers don't have to actually collect and submit the completed forms themselves—they just need to make the forms available and point people toward them.

The bill also requires the Treasury Department to help volunteer tax preparers who work with free tax assistance programs understand their new responsibilities. Additionally, those free tax assistance programs would need to add a question to their intake forms asking clients if they want a voter registration form, and they'd need to display registration forms clearly at their sites. The changes would take effect for tax years after December 2021, meaning tax preparers would start implementing these requirements during the 2022 tax season and beyond.

Filer Voter Act

Watson Coleman, Bonnie

Tax Filer Voter Registration Act or the Filer Voter Act This bill treats certain tax return preparers as voter registration agencies. Specifically, the bill requires tax return preparers who prepare at least 100 individual tax returns in a taxable year to provide voter registration application forms to their customers. The form must be made available by (1) displaying copies of the form in the preparer's office for customers who receive in-person services, and (2) providing a hyperlink to the form for customers who receive online services. The bill also outlines the responsibilities of the Department of the Treasury to enable certified volunteer tax preparers to meet the requirements of the bill.