Tax Ethics: Best Practices for Ensuring Compliance With Circular 230 and Other Applicable Rules

Fulfilling one's professional obligations as a tax practitioner has never been easy, and the disruption caused by more practitioners working from home has compounded the profession's ethical challenges. This webinar will explore how Circular 230, statutory penalties, and other applicable rules apply in everyday situations and discuss how technological changes expose tax professionals to potential sanctions.

To practice before the IRS, tax practitioners must comply with standards outlined in Circular 230, which covers conflicts of interest, the duty of confidentiality, knowledge of a client's omission, and other issues, including the duty of supervisors to ensure that others in their firm comply with the rules. Knowing the requirements of the Circular, which complements the professional standards adopted by accounting societies and bar associations, is vitally important.

Listen as Bryan C. Skarlatos, Partner at Kostelanetz LLP discusses how Circular 230 and other rules apply in various factual situations and could affect a professional's responsibilities. He will provide takeaway practical hints and best practices to ensure compliance and avoid penalties.

1. Importance of ethics training
   • What are ethics?
   • What are the sources of ethical rules?
2. The intersection of personal beliefs and professional rules of conduct
3. Ethical reasoning process of tax practitioners
4. An analytical framework for tax professionals
5. Overview of Circular 230
6. What constitutes practice before the IRS?
7. Circular 230: Review of key provisions
8. Circular 230: Open issues
9. The ethical landscape
10. Ethical scenarios
11. Civil penalties, including IRC 6694
12. Appendices

After completing this program, participants will understand how Circular 230 addresses the more commonly encountered ethical questions tax practitioners face, including:

• What to do if you have knowledge of a client's omission of income from a tax return
• Can you rely on the work of other tax return preparers?
• What is the extent you may rely on and use client-provided information?
• What standards are associated with advising clients?

Learning Objectives

After completing this course, you will be able to:

• Differentiate among tax preparers, planners, and representatives
• Understand the key provisions of Circular 230
• Ascertain the extent that a tax professional may rely on and use client-provided information
• Determine the standards associated with advising clients
• Discern what activities constitute practice as a tax professional

• Field of Study: Taxes
• Level of Knowledge: Intermediate
• Advance Preparation: None
• Teaching Method: Seminar/Lecture
• Delivery Method: Group-Internet (via computer)
• Attendance Monitoring Method: Attendance is monitored electronically via a participant's PIN and through a series of attendance verification prompts displayed throughout the program
• Prerequisite: Three years+ business or public firm experience preparing complex tax forms and schedules, supervising other preparers or accountants. Specific knowledge and understanding of pass-through taxation, including taxation of partnerships, S corporations and sole proprietorships, qualified business income, net operating losses and loss limitations; familiarity with net operating loss carry-backs, carry-forwards and carried interests.

Strafford Publications, Inc. is registered with the National Association of State Boards of Accountancy (NASBA) as a sponsor of continuing professional education on the National Registry of CPE Sponsors. State boards of Accountancy have final authority on the acceptance of individual courses for CPE Credits. Complaints regarding registered sponsons may be submitted to NASBA through its website: www.nasbaregistry.org.

IRS Approved Provider

Strafford is an IRS-approved continuing education provider offering certified courses for Enrolled Agents (EA) and Tax Return Preparers (RTRP).