IRS Ready to Roll with New EA Exam

The Internal Revenue Service recently announced that its enrolled agent exam, which was scheduled this past April for a makeover, is now already revised and available for the October-November testing window. The new test, completed with the help of Thomson and with active agent input, now has three sections: individuals, businesses and policies and procedures with about 100 questions. Among other changes to make the EA exam more user friendly: the exam will be offered throughout the year, over 290 Thomson-based test sites will be available for test-takers and the test need not all be taken at one sitting.

The biggest surprise in the article was that many EAs were also CPAs or attorneys--I believed that the primary reason for getting the EA exam was to be able to represent taxpayers before the IRS but still avoiding having to take the CPA exam. A reainder for EAs--make sure to renew every three years and to get two hours of ethics each year.