Red Earth Software aids compliance with Circular 230
Policy Patrol adds disclaimer conforming to new IRS disclaimer guidelines
Portsmouth, NH – June 15, 2005 – Red Earth Software, developer of email and web content security software, is helping tax practitioners adhere to the recently issued final regulations amending Circular 230*. As from June 20 2005, tax professionals must add a prominent disclaimer to written discussions regarding a federal tax matter or face possible disciplinary action. Red Earth Software’s Policy Patrol Disclaimers can ensure that the required disclaimer is automatically added to email messages containing tax advice, in the IRS stipulated format.
Section 10.35 of Circular 230 states that with every written tax advice, tax professionals, including financial planners, insurance agents, attorneys, CPA’s, enrolled agents and unenrolled return preparers, must either include all relevant and potentially relevant legislation, regulations, court cases and IRS rules that may be related to the subject of the tax advice, or include a disclosure stating that the opinion cannot be relied upon for penalty purposes. The disclaimer must be near the top of an opinion in a typeface the same size or larger than the typeface of the tax advice. Policy Patrol Disclaimers can ensure compliance with section 10.35 by prepending the required disclaimer in the specified format when an email message contains tax advice.
“Policy Patrol can be configured to check for tax related words in an outgoing email message, and when these are present add a disclaimer to ensure compliance with Circular 230,” said Mike Spykerman, CEO of Red Earth Software. “Since you only require this particular disclaimer to be added when tax advice is given, a simple disclaimer package that adds the disclaimer to all messages is not sufficient. Policy Patrol Disclaimers also allows the disclaimer to be formatted in a larger font size and to place the disclaimer above the message or in a separate section, as stipulated by the new Treasury regulations”.
“We use Policy Patrol Disclaimers since it is one of the few programs that is truly flexible enough to ensure compliance and meet our needs at the same time,” said Phillip Strickler, Partner of Wiener Strickler LLP. “With Policy Patrol installed we can rest assured that no email containing tax advice will unintentionally leave the organization without the required disclaimer. In addition, Policy Patrol Disclaimers allows us to add our standard disclaimer to all other non-tax related emails and only add the IRS imposed disclaimer when necessary and relevant. Should one of our advisors not wish to add the disclaimer, Policy Patrol allows the user to suppress the disclaimer by adding a code to the subject.”
About Policy Patrol Disclaimers
Policy Patrol Disclaimers is an add-on for Exchange Server and Lotus Domino/Notes and adds disclaimers at server level. Red Earth Software is making available a free ‘Tax practitioners kit’ including information on how to configure Policy Patrol to comply with Circular 230. The kit is available for download from: http://www.policypatrol.com/taxpractitionerskit.htm. A 30-day evaluation version is available from http://www.policypatrol.com.
About Red Earth Software
Red Earth Software is a Microsoft Certified Partner that specializes in the development of content security solutions that help companies regulate and optimize the use of their Internet and messaging systems. Included among Red Earth Software clients are large international organizations such as Nissan, Targus, Canadian Pacific Railway, USA.net, Lotto, Fujitsu Services (Central Government customer), Daewoo and Sony of Canada Ltd.
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* Circular 230: Revised Regulations of Tax Practitioners
http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/reports/circular230reg.pdf
For more information about this press release or to request copies for review, please send an email to press@redearthsoftware.com.
Policy Patrol® is a registered trademark of Red Earth Software®. Other product or service names mentioned herein are the trademarks of their respective owners.
