How to Become a Professional Tax Preparer
If you are looking for a profession that gives you several options and quite a bit of flexibility, then you may want to consider becoming a professional tax preparer. What does it take? How do you pull it off?
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Things You'll Need
- Tax courses
- Accountant experience (Helpful, not required)
- Computer
- Tax software
- Printer
Instructions
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Because no licensing or certification is required to become a tax preparer, you do not have to do anything. However, to make yourself more appealing to customers, you will want to make sure that you have something to back up your knowledge.
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Enroll in a course provided by a tax prep service like Jackson Hewitt, or H&R Block. This will give you the knowledge you need (or help you remember things you may have forgotten), plus keep you current on any new tax law changes. Then, you'll have the backing of the company who taught the course, to help you gain clients.
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Consider getting a position with a company like Jackson Hewitt or H&R Block and working for a few seasons before branching out on your own as a private provider. This way, you can let the clients given to you by them know that you will be an independent preparer and they can still use you. You can get customers with the advertising power of the corporation to use in your private efforts later.
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From there, you would treat it as any other small business, working on small forms of advertising and marketing. As long as you have the necessary software to help you prepare multiple returns for a flat fee, then you are doing great.
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Tips & Warnings
Remember, a yearly refresher so that you may stay up to date with the tax law changes may not be a bad idea!
Getting a job through a company first will help you build proof of expertise, and may help you find clients to carry on when you become a private provider for yourself.
Just because you can become a preparer without any formal training or certification, it doesn't mean you should. Guide yourself through your own to save yourself money on fees. But do not file someone else's for pay if you do not know what you need to know!
