Main Street Practitioner Blog

Hi, Everyone,

Time is running out to register for the best live EA Review Course anywhere!  The NSA Enrolled Agent Exam Review Course, August 7-9 in Minneapolis.  I am honored to present this course once again along with my colleague Bill Duncan. We always have great success with these sessions because we want our candidates to learn the tax law, and not just memorize it and that is what differentiates our course from the others. 

Attendees get access to a private online community where Bill and I provide useful information leading up to our course and long afterward.  We will post tips, practice questions, and perhaps some additional diagrams that help you understand the material that we will cover in class.  And, as always, we welcome questions and comments from participants; there are no bad questions!  We can all learn from the discussions (and that includes Bill and me, who are not out there in practice where the fire is burning.

The materials attendees receive include 150 questions incorporated in each exam part of the slides for the review, and the FULL set of materials has hundreds more questions.  We used as many questions that are still relevant from the old open-exam era as possible, since (1) some may appear once again on the actual exam and (2) these questions provide a real feel for the level of specificity on the exam.  Here's a sample; consider the question and then scroll forward for the answer:

Martha Washington was born on January 1, 1950.  Martha's standard deduction on her 2014 Form 1040 is:

a.   $3,950

b.   $6,200

c.   $7,750

d.   $12,200 

And the answer is . . . . . . .  $7,750.  Although Martha was age 64 on December 31, 2014, the last day of the tax year, the Internal Revenue Code presumes that a taxpayer reaches age 65 on the day before their 65th birthday (i.e., the person has "lived" for 65 complete years). Since Martha turns age 65 on 1/1/2015, she may take the normal standard deduction of $6,200 plus the $1,550 "bump up" for being age 65 or older. Tricky, tricky, but this is the kind of question that is occasionally included on the exam. 

That's why we will spend so much time examining these questions in class. We look forward to seeing you in Minneapolis. As teachers, Bill and I just love to talk!