IRS publications and I have generally had a love/hate relationship. They are often much more accessible and helpful than the standard form instructions, but the accessibility gets considerably less appealing the longer you read them. The reading assignments for the advanced course…
Displaying: The CTP® Experience
Organizing My Homework
After completing the Comprehensive Tax Course, it became readily apparent that I needed a method for organizing my completed assignments. When I sat down to do some tax homework the other day, I noticed a growing stack of forms and schedules on…
There’s Always More to Learn
As I work through the Advanced tax course it has been interesting to see how much additional information there is beneath the surface. While the Comprehensive tax course spent a lot of time getting me comfortable with basic tax return preparation (by…
The Holidays Are Over!
As much as I enjoyed the holiday season and the short work weeks, everything is definitely back into full swing again. Especially for those of us interested in doing taxes. Unfortunately, some unexpected obligations that have come up for me mean that…
Study Method Change
After completing Chapter 1 of the Advanced Course, I’ve decided that I will go back to a more traditional study method. The Comprehensive Course was long enough that there were times where I didn’t really feel like I was getting anywhere. Between…
Keeping the Momentum
After finishing the Comprehensive Course, it was really tempting to take a nice long break but after only a couple of weeks I decided to get back into it. Some of it is because I would like to cover as much as…
I’m back!
I recently received the hard copies of the Advanced I course and have already completed most of the reading and activities for Chapter 1 and 2. Advanced I goes back to some of the topics discussed in the Comprehensive Course but in…
Comprehensive Course Completed
I finished the comprehensive course and based on my first post it took me about 14 weeks. As is the case for all of us, sometimes life got in the way, but overall I feel like I kept a decent pace and…
Spending Time to Save Time
I can almost say that without exception, every time I rushed through the reading in a chapter and attempted quizzes, learning activities, or review questions, I ran into problems. It also seemed to be, without exception, that these problems could have been…
A Newfound Comfort in Filling out Returns by Hand
When I first started dealing with all of the tax return problems in this course by hand, I really, really missed software. It’s nice to answer a few questions, do a little data entry and just watch completed forms pop out of…
Updates and Corrections: Don’t Leave Home Without Them
While I’ve been mostly happy with my approach of doing my work offline a couple chapters at a time and then entering them online at a later time, there have been a few mishaps on my part. The most important one being…
Tax Preparation is Best Learned from Experience
Throughout this course, one of the things that I’ve really appreciated is the way the questions and answers are handled for all the learning activities. Since for many of us, this is a self-study course, it’s always nice to be given an…