Discussion:My accountant died and was enrolled agent and maybe not CPA?

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Discussion Forum Index --> Accounting Questions --> My accountant died and was enrolled agent and maybe not CPA?

Bill F (talk|edits) said:

1 June 2008
My accountant and of others died and was enrolled agent and not CPA.

She may have made numerous mistakes-what is our liability? She apparently even had power of attorney @ some point.

Uncle Sam (talk|edits) said:

1 June 2008
An Enrolled Agent is licensed by the Internal Revenue Service. That person took and passed a very rigorous income tax test, and she is granted the same recognition before the IRS as a CPA. In addition - she is obligated under the Circular 230 (which is the IRS rule book for practicing as a CPA, Enrolled Agent or Attorney) to take continuing professional education courses annually - otherwise her license is not renewed.

Regarding "mistakes" - since it is your tax return - you are responsible for whatever is reported on it - regardless of how the preparer prepared the return. That is why it is advisable for you to review the return and ask questions BEFORE the return is submitted for filing.

The Power of Attorney form is quite common to have - as it is less time consuming in the future should she need to contact IRS regarding a return on your behalf.

There are plenty of CPAs and Enrolled Agents in every state willing to help you pick up where this person left off. There's also a strong chance that someone else will be purchasing the practice to continue in her absence.

WPBCPA (talk|edits) said:

15 July 2008
Uncle Sam - fill out your Profile - you are not above the law.

Trillium (talk|edits) said:

15 July 2008
WP, there is no profile “law.”

Intuit has never been willing to enforce or require a “profiles required” rule. The users of the forum do what they can to try to get people to fill out the profile (e.g., the request when the user name is created, and the language on the new tax question page) as it can often be very helpful to know someone’s background when assessing the reliability of their responses, or when determining how to answer a question they have posed. And, of course, many users will ignore questions by people without profiles. Some will go so far as to request (or, sadly, demand) a profile, even when it’s clear from the question being asked that the person is a student, for example, or a DIY.

You know, profiles didn’t even exist when this wiki was started. The User page is one of the many, many improvements that have been seen since the beginning of Tax Almanac. By the time user pages/profiles came about, there were people who’d been posting here for, what, a year at least, and had more than proven their reliability through the content of their posts. Uncle Sam most definitely would be among that group.

Meanwhile, all users would do well to remember that the content of their posts still tells others at least as much about them as the content of their user page does.

Uncle Sam (talk|edits) said:

15 July 2008
Thank you for the kind compliment Trillium.

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