IRS 1 hour webinar today with only 3 survey questions 20 minutes into the webinar. The host said that whether or not you participate in the survey questions has no bearing on you receiving your 1 CPE. It was said in today’s IRS webinar that as of today there is 48K RTRP’s and 200K preparers w/o passing any competency exams. The IRS panel, 2 males and 1 female. The female I thought did a good job describing the differences between the EA and RTRP making in my opinion, the EA shine. That same female said a Public Data base within the IRS website will be created in the next year or couple years. The public can search by zip code or credentials. Only EA, RTRP’s, CPA’s & Tax Attorney will be included in Public Data base. Towards the end of the Webinar a question was submitted about which exam (RTRP or EA) would they suggest they take first. It was strange that nobody on the panel caught that “which one do you suggest first”. Anyway the female panelist encouraged taking the EA exam and she sounded like the RTRP was only restricted to preparing individual returns. At the end the female panelist said they had a 94 yr old lady pass the exam (she did not say EA or RTRP exam) the first time. OMG, if I am still preparing tax returns at 94, ahhhh