The IRS competency test for tax return preparers is open for business
It's the moment you've been waiting for, at least if you're a tax preparer who needs to be registered by the IRS in order to continue hanging out your shingle. The IRS competency test for tax return preparers is open for business, so you can start queuing up to take the test and get your official "Registered Tax Return Preparer" designation.
Licensed CPAs and lawyers get the right to be snooty about this test and the accompanying designation because, even if you're a CPA who hasn't the foggiest idea what a Form 8582 is and who couldn't calculate the Alternative Minimum Tax if your life depended on it, or a criminal lawyer whose only connection with taxes relates to the tax scofflaws he defends, you get a bye from the IRS on taking the test. Enrolled agents, whom, we would assume, would actually be on top of the tax laws, get to overlook the test as well. For the rest of you, it's time to brush up on the intricacies of the tax law and take your medicine, uh, that is, test.
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Perry is a CPA and a former senior tax accountant with Big Four firm Deloitte. She maintains a small tax practice, she is a personal finance instructor, and the author of thirty books, including Surviving Financial Downsizing: A Practical Guide to Living Well on Less Income (Adams Media); QuickBooks on Demand (Que); Excel 2007 Macros Made Easy (McGraw Hill); The Complete Idiot's Guide to Doing Your Income Taxes (Alpha/MacMillan); and, most recently, Mint.com for Dummies (John Wiley & Sons). In addition, she is a former columnist for the Indianapolis Star and Indianapolis News daily newspapers.
Perry is a nationally recognized speaker who advises public accountants on using Internet tools to improve their accounting practices. She also taught a college-level introductory accounting class and was on staff at the Indiana CPA Society as a computer applications instructor. For five years, she was a contributing editor for Accounting Today magazine before taking over the helm at AccountingWEB.
Perry is a graduate of Indiana University where she earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism. She returned to school to study accounting at Illinois State University, passed the CPA exam (in one sitting!), and worked for Deloitte in the Chicago tax department.
Gail has been named one of the 25 Most Powerful Women in Accounting by CPA Practice Advisor magazine and the American Society of Women Accountants.
