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So this just happened - IRS Removes Debt Indicator for 2011 Tax Filing Season.

Here are corporate responses to this news by H&R Block and Jackson Hewitt. Stock prices in both companies fell as a result of this news.

When individual tax returns are electronically filed, they are acknowledged in a data set which also includes the so called Debt Indicator. If the taxpayer has outstanding amounts owed to a Federal or State agency - for anything from back taxes to unpaid child support, and so on - notification of that would be shown in the Debt Indicator column of the acknowledgements. For people like me who worked in the tax preparation business, this let us know if a customer who was applying for a RAL would have their loan reduced or entirely eliminated. It was also used as an underwriting tool of the banks which issue these kind of loans. Without this information, the tax preparation peons will have no way of knowing what the status is of a client's loan until the check actually shows up (if it ever does), and the fees for issuing such loans will likely increase because the banks have less information to know which loans to approve or deny. This also will likely mean that less banks will be even willing to offer such loans in the first place.

The most recent tax season was bad enough with the job situation as it was and because the RALs were more difficult to come by because banks weren't as willing to extend those kind of loans to begin with. The majority of customers who I had in the year were already aggravated with the loan situation being so different from the way it was years ago at that point. Now with this news, everyone's anger will be multiplied.

To be certain, I'm going to do what I can to be employed elsewhere before the end of the year so that I don't have to return to the old tax preparation retail store for a job ever again. Last season was bad enough. I can scarcely imagine what kind of nightmare the 2010 filing season will be like now.