Updated August 25, 2026. Quick answer: 31,650 PTIN holders list a business address in India — more than every state except California, Texas, Florida, New York, Georgia and Illinois. Sending your return information abroad requires your consent because disclosing it without consent is a misdemeanour. But a US preparer may not obtain consent to send your Social Security number outside the United States at all, and must redact it.
What is usually said, and what the sources say
Nobody publishes how much American tax preparation happens outside the United States, and the consent form that makes it lawful is handed over as boilerplate. Both halves are answerable from public federal sources.
The IRS's FOIA extract counts them: preparers with a business address in India outnumber the preparers in all but six states. And the rule that governs the disclosure is stricter than the form suggests – a preparer inside the United States may not obtain your consent to send your Social Security number abroad at all, and must redact it.
Counting them
The IRS’s FOIA extract records a business country for 44,877 of its 858,780 PTIN holders. One country accounts for 71% of them.
| Business country in the extract | PTIN holders |
|---|---|
| India | 31,650 |
| CA | 3,753 |
| AR | 1,568 |
| GB | 1,270 |
| PH | 1,193 |
| PR | 624 |
Two-letter codes as they appear in the IRS file; only the largest is expanded. A business address is not a nationality and not a workplace.
31,650 PTIN holders list a business address in India. Ranked against the states, that would place seven, behind only California, Texas, Florida, New York, Georgia and Illinois — ahead of every other state in the country.
| City | PTIN holders |
|---|---|
| Hyderabad | 6,155 |
| Bangalore | 4,607 |
| Bengaluru | 3,126 |
| Kolkata | 3,010 |
| Gurugram | 1,264 |
| Ahmedabad | 1,058 |
Cities as spelled in the extract; Bangalore and Bengaluru are the same city under two spellings and are counted separately here because the IRS’s file records them separately.
Nothing about this is hidden or unlawful, and none of it is new. What is missing is the count, and the count changes how you read the consent form.
The form you signed without reading
Your preparer cannot pass your return information to anyone without your consent, and the reason is criminal rather than contractual. A preparer who knowingly or recklessly discloses it, or “uses any such information for any purpose other than to prepare, or assist in preparing, any such return”, “shall be guilty of a misdemeanor, and, upon conviction thereof, shall be fined not more than $1,000” (26 U.S.C. § 7216(a)).
So the consent form exists to lift a misdemeanour. That is its whole function. It is normally presented in a stack with the engagement letter, and it is the document that decides whether your return leaves the country.
The rule the form does not tell you about
Consent does not cover everything. The regulation carves one item out and the carve-out is absolute for the Form 1040 series: “a tax return preparer located within the United States, including any territory or possession of the United States, may not obtain consent to disclose the taxpayer's social security number (SSN) with respect to a taxpayer filing a return in the Form 1040 Series” (26 C.F.R. § 301.7216-3(b)(4)(i)). Not «may not disclose without consent» — may not obtain the consent at all.
And if consent to send the rest of the return abroad is given, “the tax return preparer located in the United States may not disclose the taxpayer's SSN, and the tax return preparer must redact” it (26 C.F.R. § 301.7216-3(b)(4)(i)). There is a route in the following paragraph for a preparer who protects the number “through the use of an adequate data protection safeguard as defined by the Secretary in guidance published in the Internal Revenue Bulletin” (26 C.F.R. § 301.7216-3(b)(4)(ii)); we quote that the route exists and did not read the guidance defining the safeguard.
That gives you one concrete thing to check. If a consent form asks you to authorise disclosure to a preparer outside the United States and your Social Security number is on the pages going with it unredacted, the form is asking for something the regulation says a US preparer may not obtain by consent alone.
What this does not tell you
It does not tell you your return went anywhere. The extract counts preparers who gave the IRS a foreign business address; it says nothing about whose returns they touch, who employs them, or how many US returns are prepared abroad. We looked for that last number and no primary source publishes it, so it does not appear here.
It also says nothing about quality. A preparer in Hyderabad and a preparer in Houston sit under the same federal rules, and the credential picture inside the United States is not flattering enough to support an argument about where the work is better done. The question this page answers is narrower: how many, and what did your signature authorise.
What this page does not settle
This page counts business addresses in a federal file and quotes the disclosure rules. It alleges nothing about any preparer, firm or country.
A business address is not a workplace and not a nationality. The extract records the address a PTIN holder gave the IRS; it does not say who employs them, whose returns they touch, or whether any given return crosses a border. The count is of preparers, never of returns.
No primary source we read publishes how many US individual returns are prepared outside the United States. That number does not appear on any page here, because we could not read it anywhere.
The regulation's SSN rule is quoted for the Form 1040 series. The section also provides a route involving an adequate data protection safeguard defined in the Internal Revenue Bulletin; we quote that the route exists and did not read the guidance that defines the safeguard.
We did not obtain, read or archive a single consent form from any preparer. Everything here about what a consent may and may not do comes from the regulation's own text.
Sources
- 26 C.F.R. § 301.7216-3(b)(4)(i) — https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-26/chapter-I/subchapter-F/part-301/subject-group-ECFR22aca9e02d5f13c/section-301.7216-3
- 26 C.F.R. § 301.7216-3(b)(4)(ii) — https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-26/chapter-I/subchapter-F/part-301/subject-group-ECFR22aca9e02d5f13c/section-301.7216-3
- 26 U.S.C. § 7216(a) — https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title26-section7216&num=0&edition=prelim
- 26 U.S.C. § 7216(a)(2) — https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=granuleid:USC-prelim-title26-section7216&num=0&edition=prelim
- IRS FOIA consolidated PTIN extract, sha256 393647afbb1d4965, fetched 2026-08-25 — https://www.irs.gov/tax-professionals/ptin-information-and-the-freedom-of-information-act
- IRS federal tax return preparer statistics, data current as of 08/01/2026 — https://www.irs.gov/tax-professionals/tax-professional-management-office-federal-tax-return-preparer-statistics
Related: How Many Paid Tax Preparers Have No Credential At All · What A Tax Preparer Credential Actually Buys You · How to respond to an IRS notice.
General information drawn from the federal statutes, regulations, court opinion and IRS datasets named above, not legal, tax or financial advice. Rules change and the IRS republishes these files; the figures here are what each source said on the date above, and each is linked so you can check it.