Ms. Hockenberry: We are the National Association of Tax Professionals; we currently have about 19,800 members who are tax professionals. They can be CPAs, attorneys, enrolled agents, unenrolled tax preparers, and we provide education and research, and other resources to them. We are basically a trade organization. We were founded in 1979, and we're located in Appleton, Wisconsin.
TWST: What should people consider when choosing a tax professional?
Ms. Hockenberry: That's the 64,000 question. We get asked that every tax season
when somebody is doing an article on how to find a tax preparer. When you're
completely starting from scratch, most people talk to friends and family, co-
workers and say, "Who do you have do your tax return?" That's one place to
start. Or you could look in the phone book and see who's out there. Once you
start actually speaking to the tax professionals, you want to find somebody who
keeps up with their education. Tax law constantly changes, so you want to make
sure that the person that you're dealing with is familiar with all the current
laws and the changes that have taken place because it's endless, it's non-stop.
You're going to want to find somebody who is available all year. Taxes and tax
problems don't end April 15. If something comes up during the year, your life
situation changes, you have a death in the family, you have a marriage, you have
children, a divorce, you're thinking about starting a business, you're going to
want to talk to your tax preparer to find out the best strategy to take. You are
going to want to find out what their background is, what kinds of returns do
they prepare. Having credentials like a CPA or an enrolled agent is nice to
have. There are a lot of unenrolled preparers out there that are extremely
knowledgeable, that have been in business for a really long time, have never had
problems with the IRS. So you're going to want to dig into their background and
ask them questions, and find out what kind of returns they prepare, what their
background is or how long they've been in business, that sort of thing. You can
always check the Better Business Bureau to make sure that there aren't any bad
marks against them. Eventually, the IRS is going to put something on their Web
site where you can find out if somebody is really an enrolled agent. Sometimes
people claim, "Oh yeah, I'm an enrolled agent, I can practice before the IRS,"
and it turns out they're not. So they're going to have an EA lookup site on
their page.
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