Discussion:How to get Part time work as an EA

So, what's the liklihood of getting, and how do I go about finding, some part-time tax prep work? I'm more interested in the experience than the money. I'll still be working full-time so I'd only be able to do evenings and weekends but figured they're all pretty busy during the season so that shouldn't matter as much.

Is it realistic to think I could get some work like this with no experience, but with an EA license? (assuming of course I pass first time.)

Thanks for the input.

Best advice: also take a tax prep class or two. Perhaps you already have?

In my opinion, a good preparer should know the approximate outcome BEFORE inputting anything into any software. If you don't know the difference between interest income and interest expense, then I'm not going to teach you.

for those who are wondering, the attorney wasn't practicing law for me (well, maybe tax law, but I do that every day) and the CPA wasn't doing attest work.

For instance, you could recite the rules for claiming a casualty loss for business equipment destroyed in a presidentially declared disaster area. What I would want to know as a prospective employer, is whether you know where to put the transaction: Sch C, 4797, 4684, or other? What impact will this have on SE tax? (note that this is not a question I would normally ask a regular preparer, but an EA is expected to know things like this) You don't learn this in most EA prep classes.

(By the way, I was one of the 7 EAs who validated the current SEE exam a year and a half ago, so I have to disclose that my example above is purely hypothetical, and in no way should be construed as information that might or might not be on the particular exam set of questions that you receive.)

1) it's computerized now, your questions are selected from a pool of questions that have been rated for 'difficulty' so that everyone gets an equally difficult test. (some questions are more difficult than others - you won't get all difficult questions).

2) you can take it whenever you want - it used to be offered only once a year

3) you can study just for one part or another at a time - you don't need to take all parts at once (this is the area that people say makes it easier, but I personally don't agree that it does - either you know it or you don't)

4) they combined 2 sections and made one very very very broad section - meaning you had better study everything for that one part.

I will tell you that none of the EAs helping Thomson Prometric (there were several on each phase) would allow a dumbed-down version. We wanted new EAs to be equivalent to what we were when we were new EAs. BUT, my group did throw out several questions that we didn't feel were necessary for new EAs to know - they were either too esoteric or something that you couldn't know until you had practiced as an EA for a little while. We also had to throw out some questions that the EA question writers had submitted because - gasp - their answers were incorrect or were worded so that there was sufficient doubt in our minds that people who should pass would get it correct. Thompson knew how to statistically select the questions that needed reviewing - questions that people who passed overall consistently got wrong as well as questions that it was obvious that everyone was guessing on (based on the distribution of answers). Sometimes the question was a good question, but just a hard question that someone would really have had to study for (they weren't likely to have seen it in an ordinary tax season, but it was an important concept for a beginning EA to know), so we left those in the pool.

In my opinion the new exam is very fair but it is designed to set a minimum level for someone to become an EA. Therefore those who really know their stuff will have no problems, and those with problems just aren't ready to become EAs.

Once I had all of that under my belt (probably mid-December) I mailed out about 250 resumes to area tax firms. I live in the Chicago suburbs so it was fairly easy for me to find this many firms within about a 10 mile radius. I was looking for some type of tax work. I ended up getting about a dozen phone calls over the following month.

One thing I did as well was I took the time to register at Accountemps. I'm not sure if you have an office nearby, but they ended up having a lot of opportunities. I found something early on in the season on my own, but they probably called me 2 or 3 times a week from late January to mid-March.

One other thing I would add - when I sent out my cover letter and resume, I printed it off on nice, heavy paper (28lb stock) and in color. I feel like it made a difference as I was surprised at the number of calls I received from just mailing out my resume cold.

Hopefully this helps. I would definitely encourage you to puruse the EA designation as it will open some doors for you.