Tax Practice in Light of the New Tax Preparer Penalties and Ethical Standards: Navigating the Minefield!
Why Attend?
This video webcast presents an authoritative panel, including those charged with enforcing the new rules, that can help you adjust your practice and keep it legal! The program replays the ACPEN course held January 31, 2008, and includes faculty standing by to respond to registrants' questions in real time.
In the first two hours, the panelists will discuss how the new standards work, steps you need to take to comply with the standards in different contexts, and the relationship of new Section 6694 to Circular 230's rules governing practice before the Internal Revenue Service.
In the last hour, a panel of practitioners from a variety of practice settings will join the mix, ask their own questions and discuss how they will adjust to these new rules, offering practical tips that you can apply to your practice immediately.
Major Topics
What are the new requirements and what do they mean to the tax practitioner?
What is the IRS’s plan for implementing the new standards?
What is “substantial authority” that can be relied upon in various situations?
What do you need to know in doing tax research to avoid penalties?
What adjustments must be made by the practitioner from the “realistic possibility” standard?
Learn how you can be subjected to multiple penalties for each K-1 you prepare
Disclosure: Is the 8275 enough? When is it required? When will it not help?
How do these expanded rules apply to all types of tax returns?
Fee structures for return preparation
As a practical matter, how do you manage applying the new standards to current clients?
Engagement letters: more critical than ever
Special problems for non-signing preparers
What You Will Learn
Another tax season looms. As if you don’t have enough to do and to be concerned with, recent changes in the Internal Revenue Code and the ethical requirements of the IRS have created new, stricter requirements on all persons who are tax return preparers.
The Small Business and Work Opportunity Tax Act of 2007 and recently issued proposed regulations under Circular 230 have implemented a new, higher standard in determining the level at which tax positions may be taken by the return preparer with and without disclosure. The new Internal Revenue Code (IRC) Section 6694 applies to a tax advisor or return preparer, and they may face a penalty if an undisclosed position that he or she advised or placed on the return is "not more likely than not to be sustained."
It gets better! The new standards generally apply to all types of tax returns, not just income tax returns.
They also provide for new and substantially heavier penalties for every income tax return filed next year. Violations, for instance, could result in a fine of $1,000 per tax return or 50% of the preparer’s fee, whichever is greater. No CPA, lawyer or enrolled agent can afford to begin the 2008 tax season without understanding these new provisions.
Planning Chair
Larry Jones, JD, Townsend & Jones, LLP, Dallas, TX
Faculty
Art Auerbach, CPA, Tax Director, Goodman & Company, Tysons Corner, VA
Deborah A. Butler, JD, Associate Chief Counsel, Procedures and Administration, IRS, Washington, DC
Michael Chesman, Director, Office of Professional Responsibility, IRS, Washington, DC
Armando Gomez, JD, Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP, Washington, D.C.
Frank Lavadera, CPA, KPMG, New York, NY
For biographical details, click here.
This program is live video webcast replay of the January 31, 2008 ACPEN course, with faculty standing by to respond to attendee questions in real time.
Program Schedule
All Times Eastern Standard
10:00 a.m. Course Begins
11:40 a.m. Break (15 minutes)
11:55 p.m. Course Resumes
12:45 p.m. Course Adjourns
Total 60-minute hours of instruction: Total 60-minute hours of instruction: 2.5. Total 50-minute hours, 3.0. (0 hours of CLE ethics credit). Because of filing deadlines, CLE credit is not available in Delaware, Kansas, and Indiana.
Suggested Prerequisite: Experience as a tax advisor or return preparer
Educational Objective: Maintenance/enhancement of professional competence
Level of Instruction: Intermediate/Advanced
Times
Eastern 10:00 a.m. - 12:45 p.m.
Central 9:00 a.m. - 11:45 a.m.
Mountain 8:00 a.m. - 10:45 a.m.
Pacific 7:00 a.m. - 9:45 a.m.
Alaska 6:00 a.m. - 8:45 a.m.
Hawaii 5:00 a.m. - 7:45 a.m.
