EA Continuing Education Is the Most Reliable Training for Taxpayer Audits
When taxpayers receive audit notices from the IRS, they turn to tax professionals for assistance. This increases the demand for enrolled agents as more taxpayers are notified about IRS examinations of previously filed tax returns.
Common audit notices merely require reply by mail. But some involve meeting with an IRS officer. Either way, substantiation of questioned deductions is required. In addition, any prior omissions of income can trigger a taxpayer search for unreported deductible expenses that are related to the income.
As an enrolled agent, your tax CPE addresses various types of reportable income and associated expense deductions. This is a significant value required by recipients of audit notices. It’s a level of expertise that distinguishes an enrolled agent for tax services. Only enrolled agents have CPE that addresses strictly tax issues.
Other professionals who can represent taxpayers before the IRS are CPAs and attorneys. But individuals with these practices may complete CPE in subjects other than tax matters. Enrolled agents stand out as premier tax practitioners. When promoting tax services, pointing out your enrolled agent continuing education requirements enhances your appeal and builds your business.
Despite IRS efforts to simplify audit notices, they customarily confuse recipients. Some of the simplest audit cases for an enrolled agent to handle involve mismatches of income reporting sources. The biggest example is income on a taxpayer’s return that doesn’t match reporting by payment sources on Form 1099-Misc. This can occur when the issuer of a 1099 uses an incorrect taxpayer ID number.
For example, owners of partnership or S corporation businesses may receive 1099s with their social security numbers instead of the taxpayer ID for the businesses. In other cases, taxpayers accidentally omitted on their originally filed tax returns some extra income reported on a 1099. However, tax is not necessarily owed on the entire 1099 amount. Instead, these taxpayers can deduct ordinary and necessary expenses from the compensation reported on the 1099.
The training in EA continuing education provides knowledge for resolving the IRS audit issue plus helping taxpayers correctly report on their future tax returns in order to avoid audits.
Although unreported income is the main cause of IRS audits, poorly prepared or incomplete returns are also flagged for review. Anyone with an audit notice is therefore easily persuaded about the benefits of professional tax return preparation. Helping with tax audit notices is an ideal way to obtain introductions to individuals needing your tax expertise over the long run.
IRS Circular 230 Disclosure
Pursuant to the requirements of the Internal Revenue Service Circular 230, we inform you that, to the extent any advice relating to a Federal tax issue is contained in this communication, including in any attachments, it was not written or intended to be used, and cannot be used, for the purpose of (a) avoiding any tax related penalties that may be imposed on you or any other person under the Internal Revenue Code, or (b) promoting, marketing or recommending to another person any transaction or matter addressed in this communication.