Simply Junior

The IRS plan for return tax preparer registration is scheduled to begin September 2010 and will affect nearly every professional tax preparer in some way. Paid tax preparers must register with the IRS to obtain a Preparer Tax Identification Number, pass an IRS exam and satisfy annual continuing education.

The definition of a professional tax preparer or paid tax preparer is as follows: all individuals, Attorneys, Certified Public Accountants and Enrolled Agents who are compensated for preparing, or assisting in the preparation of, all or substantially all of a federal tax return or claim for refund or who sign, or are required to sign, a federal tax return or claim for refund as a paid tax return preparer. Any individual falling under this category must obtain a Preparer Tax Identification Number (PTIN). All paid tax preparers must obtain a PTIN in order to sign any federal tax returns or forms. The PTIN they obtain will be valid for three years. Testing of these preparers who hold a PTIN will not be implemented until after registration and mandatory PTIN usage are in place. Employees of a business who fill out their employers return will not be required to obtain a PTIN.

All paid tax preparers including Attorneys, Certified Public Accountants and Enrolled Agents who obtain a PTIN will potentially be placed within a national public database. Other information about which paid tax preparers and what information would be included is not yet available.

As of right now, the only paid tax preparers who will not have to pass the new IRS competency exam are Attorneys, Certified Public Accountants and Enrolled Agents. Paid preparers in states such as California, and Oregon who have to pass their own states’ individual criteria must still pass the IRS exam. Credential holders of organizations like the Accredited Council of Accountancy for Taxation (ACAT) will also have to pass IRS competency exams and take the continued competency testing. Across the board, regardless of any private or state accreditation, if you are not an Attorney, Certified Public Accountant or Enrolled Agent you must obtain a PTIN, pass the IRS competency exam, and take continued competency testing in order to be paid to prepare federal tax returns as a registered tax preparer.

Attorneys, Certified Public Accountants and Enrolled Agents who prepare all or substantially all of a federal tax return or claim for refund will also have to obtain a PTIN and pay the fee associated with obtaining a PTIN. However, they are not subject to the new IRS testing or additional educational requirements if they are active and in good standing with their respective licensing agencies.

Looking at this brief outline of a few of the rules and regulations proposed by the IRS, simply becoming an Enrolled Agent will potentially help you avoid 90% of the proposed rules. Of course, it remains to be seen how quickly the IRS can implement these changes or if all the changes they desire will be seen to fruition.

Most people filed their 2008 taxes online in a the month leading up to the due date. But for a variety of reasons, many taxpayers weren’t able to file 2008 taxes online at that time. Due to the tough economic conditions, many taxpayers didn’t have the money or time to file by April 15th. Usually, owing taxes feels like a major burden. But it doesn’t have to.

Instead of worrying about how you’re going to file your 2008 taxes, you can try to fix the problem instead. There are three basic steps: get the information you need, evaluate your options, and get in touch with the IRS.

The information you need is not just your tax forms (like your W-2 and 1099). It’s also important to know whether or not the IRS is expecting something from you. If you filed for an extension, you’re in luck. The IRS won’t be hassling you over your taxes owed until October 15th. That doesn’t mean you don’t have to pay (in fact, you need to pay an estimated amount in advance).

Even if you haven’t filed for an extension, you can still do your 2008 taxes online. The IRS doesn’t want you to, so they don’t allow you to e-file. But E-filing your taxes isn’t the only way to do them online. Since the IRS requires you to send them a physical piece of paper to file your taxes late, you’ll have to use a different process.

What you can do is simple: do your 2008 taxes online, and then print up the resulting forms and mail them in to the IRS. You get all the benefits of doing your 2008 taxes online, but you don’t have to worry about tripping up on some IRS rules. Of course, it’s a little extra work — a few printed pages, and a stamp.

Of course, doing your 2008 taxes on the Internet doesn’t just mean going to a website and filling out the same forms you’d fill out normally. To get the best value, you should pick a website that’s focused on helping you file your 2008 taxes online. Most good websites will have a tax terms glossary, a filing guide, and live help systems. These features all make it much easier to do your 2008 taxes online. The best feature of a site like this is that you can get the whole thing out of the way quickly. As you file your 2008 taxes online, you’ll find lots of questions that are easy to answer, and for the rest of them, the live help system will get you the answers you need.

Doing your 2008 taxes can be scary, and the IRS does a good job of making it look like you can’t do your 2008 taxes online. Fortunately, it’s much easier than it looks to prepare the filing online, and to get the whole tax problem behind you.

It’s well-known that the IRS adopts to new technology grudgingly, if at all — the jump to punched cards would still be a long way off if taxpayers didn’t happen to be voters, too. So it should come as no surprise that, even though the IRS allows some online filing, they haven’t made it easy to do your 2007 tax return online. But even if they don’t want it to be convenient, they have made it possible to complete that filing almost entirely via Internet.

The IRS rules are fairly complex, but what they boil down to is straightforward: you can do your current taxes online, with the help and blessing of the tax authorities. But if you want to do any obscure, complex, or late filings, you’ll need to jump through some hoops. If you’ve tried to fill out your 2007 tax return online before, you know what that means: they want you to send in a paper copy, along with another form telling them that the current one is late. It might sound like lots of extra work, but it’s actually quite simple.

Of course, the obvious question is: if I could do my 2007 tax return online when it was due, why can’t I do it now? It’s hard to say for sure — late taxes are already more work-intensive than taxes paid on time, so forcing people to do them on paper only compounds the problem. In fact, this might lead the IRS to collect even less money than they’d usually get, since people might steer clear of the late-filing process altogether. But perhaps the IRS thinks it’s better to make it more inconvenient to do your taxes late: if you can’t file them online, they might think, you’re more inclined to fill out your 2007 tax return right when it’s due.

But your doing your 2007 tax return online isn’t impossible. In fact, many sites make it easy to do your 2007 tax return online, and to complete other required tax forms. If you need to do your 2007 tax return online, you can simply visit a website that specializes in helping people pay taxes after they’re due. Your complete 2007 tax return online is just a few clicks away! Granted, the IRS will make ask you to send them a printed copy – but you can get all the convenience of filling our your 2007 tax return online, with only the cost of printing a few sheets of paper and buying a single stamp.

Doing your 2007 tax return online now that 2008 has come and gone might sound daunting, but it doesn’t have to be. The IRS may not be on your side here (though they’ll still happily collect your money!) but you can use online resources to make the process much easier. Once you get started, you’ll see how fast and efficient tax filing has become. You’ll also be able to see how much someone can contribute by taking a new look at an old problem like taxes. Filing your 2007 tax return online is nearly as easy now as it was on the day it was due.