Every course available for 2026.

The SECURE Act 2.0 aims to bolster retirement savings and strengthen retirement security. Although signed into law in December 2022, its provisions span several years and seek to achieve four key goals: creating better retirement security, safeguarding retirement income, simplifying plan rules, and boosting federal revenue. This course delves into the Acts various provisions, starting with those already in effect and progressing to those taking hold in later years. Well provide context to illuminate the pre-Act landscape and the impact of these legislative changes.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), enacted in 2022, was designed to lower consumer energy costs and reduce climate impact through economic incentives. It offered tax incentives for energy-efficient home improvements, electric vehicle purchases, health insurance coverage, natural gas fueling devices, and clean energy generation. This course covers these provisions, focusing on tax credits, expanded health insurance premium tax credits, and the limitation on noncorporate taxpayer excess business losses. However, the OBBBA revised or eliminated certain of the IRA provisions. Those OBBBA provisions will be examined in this course.

The One Big Beautiful Bill Act changed a great deal at once — and not every provision starts in the same year. This course walks through what changed and when: the new deduction for qualified tips under §224, car loan interest under §163(h)(4), the higher SALT cap, the charitable deduction for clients who don’t itemize, the SSN requirement attached to the child tax credit, permanent 100% bonus depreciation, §174A relief for small business research costs, the new tax-advantaged savings accounts for children, and the 1099-K rules your gig clients keep asking about. It’s built around the mistakes preparers are most likely to make — right provision, wrong effective date.

This course reviews recent changes to Circular 230 and its impact on the professional conduct of Enrolled Agents and Tax Return Preparers. Case studies illustrate the application of these provisions and their consequences. The course also highlights the role of the Office of Professional Responsibility in enforcing Circular 230 through disciplinary actions.

Think of this course as your backstage pass to the professional rulebook for tax pros. We’re breaking down the latest updates to Circular 230—what they mean, how they affect your day-to-day work, and what happens if you cross the line.We’ll walk through real-world case studies that show exactly how these rules play out in practice, and we’ll also spotlight how the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) holds tax professionals accountable. Whether you’re an Enrolled Agent or part of the Annual Filing Season Program, this course helps you stay on the right side of compliance.

Individual Income Tax Credits and Due Diligence covers various tax credits for individuals, including eligibility, timing, limitations, phaseouts, carryovers, qualified expenses, and calculations. It discusses credits like the Child Tax Credit, Earned Income Tax Credit, and American Opportunity Tax Credit. The final chapter focuses on due diligence for tax preparers, including principles, knowledge, Form 8867, recordkeeping, common errors, penalties, and IRS actions.

Each filing season for more than 20 years, the Internal Revenue Service has made a spring announcement of its Dirty Dozen list of scams and schemes - a concise, high-priority alert about the most prevalent tax scams facing individuals, businesses, and tax professionals. This course reviews the items on the 2026 Dirty Dozen list and is designed for taxpayers and tax professionals alike. It reflects the behaviors, schemes, and enforcement emphasis the IRS has placed at the top of its risk list for 2026.

Ponzi schemes aimed at defrauding unsuspecting individuals and taking their money have existed for hundreds of years. The Madoff scheme brought this type of scam to the attention of the American public in 2008, but there are many other such schemes that have operated in the United States since then. The purpose of this course is to familiarize tax professionals with Ponzi schemes and help them identify the hallmarks of such schemes.

The IRS processes over 200 million tax returns annually, many prepared by professionals like attorneys, CPAs, and enrolled agents. As tax laws grow more complex, these professionals rely on Treasury Department Circular No. 230 for guidance on ethical responsibilities, practice rules, and sanctions. This course explores these rules, duties, and sanctions, discussing requirements for tax preparers and presenting real-world scenarios to analyze ethical issues and appropriate responses.

A married couple you have prepared returns for since 2019 comes in, and one of them quietly asks about innocent spouse relief. A corporation and its majority shareholder both want you at the examination. And the hardest one: the IRS is questioning a position on a return you prepared, the client wants you to defend it, and your own interest in having been right is now sitting at the table. Circular 230 §10.29 does not prohibit representing clients whose interests conflict. It requires you to see the conflict, reasonably believe you can still provide competent and diligent representation, obtain informed consent in writing, and keep that consent for thirty-six months. Most practitioners can quote the rule and still miss the conflict, because the conflict rarely announces itself. This course teaches conflicts of interest as they actually arise in a tax practice, using the scenarios the Office of Professional Responsibility itself has flagged. It begins with a distinction that determines whether §10.29 applies to you at all — the line between preparing a return and practicing before the IRS — because merely preparing a return, even for a fee, is not practice. That line decides which duties bind an Enrolled Agent, which bind an AFSP participant, and which bind no one.

The letter does not come from an examiner. It comes from the Office of Professional Responsibility, and it is not about your client's return — it is about you. Most practitioners have never thought about how OPR gets its cases. The answer is unsettling: mostly from IRS employees, along with TIGTA, the Department of Justice, state licensing boards, and sometimes clients or other practitioners. OPR then looks at things a preparer would not expect it to look at, starting with the practitioner's own personal and business tax filing and payment compliance. And a pattern across multiple clients, returns, or years weighs heavily. This course walks the disciplinary process end to end — how a referral becomes an investigation, what OPR examines, the difference between the ordinary proceeding and expedited suspension, the sanctions available from private reprimand through disbarment, the monetary penalty that can reach the gross income derived from the conduct and can be imposed on the firm as well as the individual, and the due process rights a practitioner has at every stage. It is not a scare course. It is the one thing missing from most ethics training: what actually happens, in what order, and what you are entitled to.

Your software vendor added an AI assistant. Someone on your staff is drafting client letters with a chatbot. A client emails you a position they got from an AI tool and wants it on their return. None of that is prohibited — and none of it moves the professional responsibility off you. On June 24, 2026, the IRS Office of Professional Responsibility issued its Introductory Guidelines for Responsible AI Use in Federal Tax Practice. OPR did not write new rules. It did something more pointed: it took six provisions of Circular 230 that already applied to you and showed exactly where artificial intelligence touches each one. Due diligence now includes verifying what the machine produced. Competence now includes understanding the tool's limits. Fees now raise the question of whether you may bill for hours the software saved. And uploading a client's return data to an unsecured AI platform is not a technology decision — it is a disclosure with criminal exposure under IRC §7216. This course teaches the practitioner's duties when AI is in the workflow: what OPR actually said, which Circular 230 sections it invoked, what has gone wrong in real cases, and what a defensible firm policy looks like. It closes with the proposed amendment that would write technology competence into Circular 230 itself.

Circular 230 sets the rules every paid preparer works under, whatever their credential. This introductory course covers who may practice before the IRS and with what representation rights, the duty of due diligence when a client’s figures don’t look right, how conflicts of interest arise and what must happen before representing clients on both sides of one, the §6695(g) penalty that applies to refundable credit due diligence, the limits on advertising and fee claims, and the sanctions that follow deliberate misconduct. Practical scenarios throughout show how each rule plays out in day-to-day practice.

Above-the-line deductions are often overlooked but considered to be extremely beneficial for taxpayers. This course covers deductions in the Adjustments to Income section of Form 1040, Schedule 1, deductions that are taken before calculating AGI (adjusted gross income). Since they reduce gross income to determine AGI, they apply regardless of whether a taxpayer itemizes.

Is it time to ditch the standard deduction? 🤔 This course dives into the world of Schedule A to help you figure out when itemizing actually pays off. We’ll unpack the big-ticket deductions—like mortgage interest, medical expenses, and those salty SALT taxes 🧂—and show you how to make them work for your client’s bottom line. Whether you’re dealing with generous givers, homeowners, or big spenders, this is your cheat code to mastering itemized deductions like a pro.

Side hustles are everywhere—but not everything that makes money is a “business” in the eyes of the IRS. In this course, we’re breaking down the classic tax identity crisis: Is it a business or just a hobby with a shopping habit? 💅 You’ll learn how to tell the difference, what the IRS looks for (hello, 9-factor test!), and how to report income and expenses without raising red flags 🚩

Unlock the secrets of investment income with Schedules B and D! Learn to report tax-exempt income, OID, qualified dividends, and capital gains. Mastering these forms helps tax professionals minimize clients tax liabilities and optimize tax planning. Dive into the details and ensure accurate reporting for the best financial outcomes!

Selling business property? Tax reporting gets tricky. This course helps you calculate gain/loss, its character, and how to report it. It also covers special situations like installments, foreclosures, and exchanges.

A charitable contribution is a voluntary donation to a qualified organization without expecting anything in return. This course covers claiming deductions for cash and noncash contributions, qualified organizations, deductible contribution types, deduction limits, record-keeping, and reporting. It has been updated for the July 4, 2025, tax legislation.

If your clients have little humans (or older dependents who need care), you need to understand how to maximize the Child and Dependent Care Credit. This course breaks it all the way down—no IRS-speak, just real talk with real examples. You’ll learn who qualifies, what expenses count (spoiler: summer camps might!), how the credit is calculated, and how recent tax law changes impact it. By the end, you’ll be decoding this credit like it’s your native language. Plus, we’ll throw in a few jokes and memes to keep things spicy 🌶️

Caring for children or dependents while maintaining employment can be financially challenging. The Child and Dependent Care Credit offers valuable tax relief by reducing tax liability, making it essential to understand its limits and eligibility rules. This course provides an in-depth look at this nonrefundable credit, including who qualifies as a dependent, what expenses are allowable, and how to correctly claim the credit under current regulations.

When starting a business, the founder has many choices for its form of entity, and therefore, a number of different factors must be taken into consideration by the taxpayer. These factors include the number of employees who will be involved, the amount and source of the capital that will be used to start and operate the business, and whether the nature of the business may expose the taxpayer to potential lawsuits and other financial liabilities. This course covers the main considerations relevant to starting a business and focuses on the tax requirements and features of each type of entity.

The EITC is basically the IRS’s way of saying, “Hey, we see you working hard!” But not everyone gets it—and not everyone who should get it is claiming it. In this course, we’ll decode the who (hint: it’s more than just parents), the why (because it can be worth thousands 💸), and the how (eligibility rules, income limits, filing status, etc.). You’ll learn how to help your clients get every dollar they deserve—without triggering an audit 🕵️‍♀️

The federal government supports and encourages parents efforts to provide that education through various programs and income tax incentives. This course examines the programs, credits, deductions, and federal income tax treatment of various items that affect saving for and financing an individuals education. In so doing, it considers qualified tuition programs (QTPs), Coverdell education savings accounts (ESAs), the education savings bond program, federal tax credits for education, the federal tax treatment of scholarships, fellowships, grants and tuition reductions, and the deductions available for student loan interest, tuition, and fees.

With an increasingly steady stream of people nearing retirement, estate, gift, trust, and certain transfer taxes remain hot topics for individual taxpayers and their tax advisors. This course will provide you with the understanding and tools needed to plan for tax minimization on transfers of wealth.

Filing status is one of the most important tax concepts to understand. Gone are the days when the majority of our client couples who come into the office are married filing jointly. Couples today could be living together and not married, they could be divorced or going through a divorce, or they could be same-sex married couples. Whether your clients have children also affects their filing status. By asking the right questions, you will be able to determine the right filing status for your clients and get the lowest legal tax liability for them.

Under U.S. federal income tax law, filing status determines the tax return form used. Form 1040 reports income and deductions. Tax preparers must know their clients filing status and the forms needed. This course reviews criteria for filing, applicable forms, due dates, possible extensions, and tax treatment for different income types, including how recent legislation impacts some of these topics for the 2025 tax year.

As more people start retirement planning early and reach retirement age, tax professionals need to help clients with investment, retirement, and benefit income on their tax filings. This course covers reporting investment income (interest and dividends), income for retirees or those unable to work due to illness or injury, tax treatment of sickness and injury benefits, retirement plans, pensions, annuities, and the taxability of Social Security and Railroad Retirement Benefits.

Investing in property is costly, but platforms like Airbnb and VRBO make it easier to recoup expenses. Its crucial to understand the tax rules for renting property, especially if it is used as a residence. This course covers the tax treatment of property transactions, including real estate, stocks, bonds, vehicles, jewelry, and collectibles. It explains how to calculate and treat gains or losses for tax purposes.

Understanding tax terminology is crucial for accurate tax preparation. Clients rely on tax preparers to navigate complex language and ensure accurate returns. This course covers deductions and credits for individual taxpayers, starting with deductible expenses, followed by standard and itemized deductions, and concluding with tax credits that reduce payable tax.

The rise of app-based services like Uber and Airbnb has changed how millions of people earn money and created new tax reporting needs. This course explains the federal tax rules that apply to ride-sharing drivers and short-term rental hosts. You'll learn how these workers should report their income and expenses, what tax forms they need to use, and what common deductions they can take. We cover practical issues like tracking mileage, calculating self-employment tax, and reporting rental income. The course also explains recent court decisions about worker classification and changing IRS requirements for the gig economy.

More U.S. taxpayers are earning income that allows them to deduct business expenses, often from home offices. To qualify for a home-office deduction, specific rules must be met. This course covers qualifications, expense methods, daycare facility rules, recordkeeping, and relevant tax forms for home-office deductions.

Cybercriminals after your sensitive client data. All CPAs and tax practitioners should observe many legal rules and best practices in protecting such data from these dangerous foes. This course goes beyond the needed definitions of information security to describe todays threats to client data. Learn tips and best practices for protecting yourselves and your clients from data breaches.

Malware and cybersecurity are constantly evolving as each side tries to outpace the other. Cybersecurity experts work to identify, analyze, and patch new malware, while cybercriminals create and modify malware to bypass defenses. This course covers the current information security landscape, types of malware, phishing attacks, identity theft techniques, and best practices for dealing with malware, using practical examples and case studies.

Rental income is any payment received for the use or occupation of real property. Real property includes houses, apartments, condominiums, mobile homes, boats, vacation homes, or similar properties. This course discusses the reporting of rental income and expenses on Form 1040 Schedule E, and the rules that apply in various rental property scenarios.

The Earned Income Credit (EIC) is a refundable tax credit that has a significant impact on United States revenue. This course examines the earned income credit rules, the common errors made in claiming the credit, the consequences of its disallowance by the IRS and the requirements imposed on tax return preparers for earned income credit due diligence. It discusses the rules applicable to everyone, those applicable only to individuals with a qualifying child, and those that apply only when the taxpayer has a qualifying child.

With automated collections reinstated and the IRS emphasizing expanded enforcement efforts, tax professionals should expect continued and likely increasing IRS collection activity. Consequently, familiarity with IRS collection procedures and the mechanisms available to challenge or resolve collection actions remains critically important.

Certain business organizations, among which are those referred to as financial institutions, are charged by the FTC with taking particular steps to protect their customers financial information. Included in the category of financial institutions are professional tax preparers. Professional tax preparers normally maintain a significant amount of taxpayer information in various files-electronic and paper-that would be a treasure trove for cyber criminals. In this course, tax preparers are introduced to the problem of cybercrime and its costs, offered methods that can be expected to reduce the chances of becoming a cybercrime victim, and informed of proper steps to take if they do become victims of cybercrime.

Receiving an IRS audit letter can be intimidating, but it doesnt necessarily mean theres a significant error on your tax return. Its simply a review. Navigating an IRS Tax Audit explores the nature of audits, their formats, reasons for selection, and taxpayer representation, including the power of attorney.

The gig economy, involving various alternative work arrangements, engages 36% of U.S. workers, with 29% having it as their primary job. This shift impacts tax preparers need to prepare Schedule C. This course helps tax professionals address common Schedule C questions, covering proprietor income and deductible expenses (excluding home business use) on Part II of Schedule C (Form 1040).

Residential rental properties are a significant part of the U.S. economy, offering housing options for those who prefer renting or are not in a position to buy homes. It has been reported that approximately 115 million people live in rental properties, underscoring the importance of accurately reporting rental activities. This course covers the tax issues associated with residential real estate: part-personal, part-dwelling, and part-year use, rules for different dwelling types (condos, co-ops), depreciation methods, deducting rental activity losses, and more.

Employer-sponsored retirement plans, generally referred to in the aggregate as qualified employee plans, constitute one of the important legs of the retirement stool that individuals look to for their income in retirement. The other two legs of that stool are personal savings - through investment in securities, deferred annuities, savings accounts, etc. - and Social Security retirement benefits. This course will examine qualified employee plans, their limits and their tax treatment along with a discussion of annuities and their taxation.

With the increased interest in single family homes as investments, more and more professionals are finding themselves involved in Section 1031 transactions. Section 1031 of the Internal Revenue Code provides a tax-deferral mechanism that allows investors to accumulate wealth from certain types of real property exchanges. By precisely following the Section 1031 rules, a taxpayer can dispose of an appreciated asset without owing immediate capital gains tax. Under Section 1031 rules, the investor can roll the entire proceeds-including the gain-into like-kind real property. This course provides an explanation of who, what, where, when, and how such a tax-deferred exchange is accomplished.

According to a survey done by the Pew Research Center whose results were published in April 2023, 17% of Americans personally have invested in, traded, or otherwise used virtual currency. Additionally, the number of people investing in or engaging in transactions involving virtual currency continues to increase. These statistics strongly suggest that tax preparers must be aware of the nature of virtual currency and its tax treatment. This course provides crucial information about virtual currency transactions, directing the tax preparers approach to many issues associated with this growing area of the economy.

Every accepted return a firm transmits rides on one number: the Electronic Filing Identification Number. The IRS treats that number as a privilege, not a license, and it monitors how EROs use it — through return quality, signature-authorization records, advertising, office visits, and continuous suitability checks. An ERO who lets a taxpayer sign a blank Form 8879, charges a fee tied to the size of a refund, or never notices that the return count on their EFIN has doubled is not just risking a rejected return. The sanction ladder in Publication 3112 runs from a written reprimand to expulsion with no path back for five years.