Tax Preparers near you

A PTIN is an annual registration, not a qualification. It must be current for the filing year, and the IRS reminds preparers to renew it before preparing returns for that year. It tells you the preparer is registered with the IRS; it tells you nothing about their competence.

Above the PTIN sit the credentials. Enrolled agents pass a three-part IRS examination or qualify through experience as a former IRS employee, and must complete seventy-two hours of continuing education every three years, with a minimum of sixteen hours a year of which two must be ethics. CPAs are licensed by a state board. Attorneys are admitted by a state bar.

Between those two tiers is the Annual Filing Season Program, a voluntary route the IRS describes as recognising the efforts of non-credentialled return preparers who aspire to a higher level of professionalism. Participants complete continuing education — eighteen hours including a six-hour federal tax law refresher course with a test — renew their PTIN, agree to Circular 230 obligations, and are then listed in the public directory.

They start with identification and last year's return, because the prior return carries forward carryovers, basis and depreciation that this year depends on. Then they work through your information returns and ask for what is missing rather than estimating it.

If your return claims the earned income credit, the child tax credit or additional child tax credit, the credit for other dependents, the American opportunity credit, or head of household filing status, the preparer is subject to specific due diligence rules. They must complete Form 8867, the Paid Preparer's Due Diligence Checklist, submit it with the e-filed return, compute each credit on the appropriate worksheets, and keep those records. They must also not know, or have reason to know, that any information used is incorrect — which is why the questions can feel intrusive. They are required.

Before anything is transmitted, you should see the finished return, have the figures explained, and sign the authorisation. You then receive a complete copy. A preparer who transmits first and shows you afterwards has the order wrong.

The IRS defines a specified tax return preparer as a preparer of covered returns who reasonably expects to file eleven or more covered returns in a calendar year, and those preparers must file electronically. Covered returns are income tax returns for individuals, trusts or estates.

There are lawful exceptions — a taxpayer who chooses paper, an approved hardship waiver, a religious exemption, a return the IRS does not accept electronically. Where one applies, the preparer attaches Form 8948, Preparer Explanation for Not Filing Electronically, to the paper return.

So a paper return is not automatically a red flag. A paper return with no Form 8948 and no explanation, from a preparer who files for many clients, is worth a question.

Information returns arrive at the end of January — employers must furnish Forms W-2 by 31 January, and Form 1099-NEC must reach recipients by the same date. Filing before those documents are in hand is how amended returns get created.

Mid-February to early April is the crush. A preparer taking on new clients in that window is either very organised or overcommitted, and the difference is hard to see from outside. Booking in January costs nothing and buys attention.

If documents are genuinely missing, an extension is the correct tool. It extends time to file, not time to pay, so an estimated payment still belongs with it.