Cpe Credits For New Ea

[GTS1101]

I recently became an enrolled agent in December 2009. I just now realized I am supposed to earn 2 hours of CPE credit each month until December 2010. I also joined the NAEA. What are the NAEA requirements for the first year as an EA? And if I don't earn 2 hours in one month can I earn 4 the next month to make up for the two missed in the prior month.

Thank You!
GTS1101

[erchess]

Two Issues

IRS and NAEA have different requirements. They both set the requirements on a calendar year basis so you can leave all your continuing education until December if you want to but if you don't do by 12/31 what you were supposed to do for the year then there are problems but in your situation I believe that you will be successful in obtaining waivers..

The NAEA requires 30 credits per full year. Two of those credits must be ethics, 24 must deal with Federal Income Taxation and if you wish the remaining four may deal with State and Local Income Taxation. None of the hours may deal with accounting issues other than Income Tax and none may deal with practice management or personal growth. If you belong for less than a full calendar year then they pro rate and I think they drop the Ethics requirement. I think they also drop the allowance for four hours of State and Local Income Taxation. If you belonged for all of December but no earlier then I think they only expected you to do 2 credits since half a credit is hard if not impossible to obtain but since you didn't you're supposed to write in and say so and ask for a waiver based on the fact that you are new to the process. You won't have any trouble getting the waiver but it's a hassle, The worst that would happen in the very unlikely event they catch you fudging is you no longer belong to the organization. Then there is the question of how you would feel about yourself if you lied in writing to your professional organization.

The IRS is in some ways more flexible and in some ways less so. They will let you get by with 2 credits for Ethics and 14 credits of other Federal Income Taxation in any given year but in a three year renewal cycle you have to do 72 credits which of course averages to 24 a year. For a partial year they require two credits per month. I'm not sure what they do with partial months or the Ethics Requirement in partial years. The bottom line is you may have been supposed to do two hours in December and it they may have needed to have to do with Ethics but maybe they didn't have to be in Ethics and maybe if you were not enrolled on or before 1 December you don't have a requirement for that month. First of all someone who knows more than I do may supply the information I'm not sure about. If that does not happen, I would write to the Director of Practice and explain the situation. You may or may not need to ask for a waiver but if you do I am sure that it will be granted. Your good cause is that you were confused by the requirements. I am again advising you to go to some trouble when you could just fudge but every cycle some people get asked to prove what they put on their forms and the consequence of being caught fudging can be loss of your EA Credential. An NAEA publication late in 09 predicted an increase in enforcement activity relative to our continuing education. As with the case of the NAEA there is also the question of how you would feel about yourself if you lied in writing to the government.

Good luck working things out. I am confident you can do it but it will take time and effort.

I will share a personal story. When I became an EA you had until 1/31 of the next year to finish your continuing education for the previous year. I got the letter informing me of the change, I understood the letter, but I forgot about it and as it happened the first year of the "December Rule" was the end of a three year cycle for me. I didn't finish my education for that year until Jan 31 and I was tempted to lie but in the end I decided to come clean. I actually received a telephone call putting my mind at ease that I was forgiven for my misstep. I was of course warned not to try to count the course I finished in January toward the year in which I took it and I was indeed careful not to do do that.

[Uncle Sam]

CPE Credits for EAs

GTS-Now that you're an NAEA member- you get a bi-monthly EA Journal that has tax articles in it, with a Home CPE test to take (that is completely voluntary) - 2 hrs CPE for each magazine edition, except usually for Nov-Dec where you can obtain 4 hrs CPE. The fee is $ 35 for 2 hrs CPE.
The May-June edition articles and CPE are devoted strictly to Ethics issues - so to meet your Ethics requirement annually, without going out to any other seminar or CPE session - is to take (and pass, of course) the May-June Home CPE test.
Of course, if you go to another source for CPE and get the 2 hrs Ethics that way, that's fine too.

[thomtax]

If you are looking for hours that you can do from home/office, look at www.funcpe.com
These are very economically priced, us IRS publications for text and are completely handled on line. So if you need to squeeze something in quickly, you can.

LT