I only wish

[Oxtrainer]

After completing the 22 week course in 1997 I started doing taxes in 1998.
I only wish I could know know what I thought I Knew then.
The farther I wade out the deeper the water.

I have learned from this board it is very deep indeed.

[thomtax]

I wish that I could hear your post but the bubbles coming from my trying to breath from under this water are makeing too much noise.:-)

LT

[OldJack]

After 40 years you will still search for the bottom and not know how deep is the water as congress continues the flood rain.

[Gretel]

The first year I did taxes on my own (2002) I contacted several seaosoned (at leat 30+ years) tax preparers with questions I didn't even haven any clue where to start. At that time I was deeply shocked that they seemed to know as much as I did = nothing. It scared the heck out of me. My first tax season I could never sleep, to worried about everything.

I am still kind of scared of the IRS, in particular about my first real audit, but I am much more relaxed now. This tax season I won two disputes with the state agency. That felt really good.

[OldJack]

>>My first tax season I could never sleep, to worried about everything.<<

That is why many times during tax season I go to work at 3 or 4 am. I don't think someone should be in this business unless they worry about doing it correct.

[Gretel]

That is why many times during tax season I go to work at 3 or 4 am. I don't think someone should be in this business unless they worry about doing it correct.

Yes, I agree, but being concerned and driving yourself nuts are two different stories. Had I continued like I was in the first year, I would not be posting now, but be sitting on a porch of a funny farm.

[erchess]

I thought my first course

was long - sixteen weeks at I think five or six class hours and about twelve hours of study on my own per week. Where did OP get a twenty-two week course?

I finished that course with a good grasp of what I knew versus when I needed to get help. I actually was exposed to installment sales in that course and even though it wasn't in the course, I had a client that first year who needed a social security lump sum calculation. My Mentor printed the worksheets and had me pull the relevant previous returns of the client and told me to have at it. (In our software at the time you ticked a box to indicate that you were overriding the computer's calculation of taxable social security and entered what you thought was the correct amount. At the end there was a diagnostic message that you had overridden but I don't think you had to make any response except to tick that you had read and understood all the soft diagnostics.) My mentor answered the three or four questions I had and pointed out the errors I had made until I had it right. That family remained my clients as long as I stayed in that town and the teen who was a dependent on that return became a client on her own. They liked the way I worked so hard and they liked my firm handshake.

Someone said here or in another thread that ours is to some extent an art. I am not sure when I realized that not every situation in this business has a perfect indisputable answer.

[Oxtrainer]

I only wish

If I remember correctly the HRB course has 22 lessons which can be taken, one, two
or three times a week. Three lessons a week would seem very difficult.