Chartered Tax Advisor (CTA) Certificate Program

We cannot comment on the courses offered by other tax schools. However, we can tell you how our courses differ from many of our competitors. The Income Tax School (ITS) curriculum developers and instructors are all experienced and practicing tax professionals, which ensures that our courses provide practical knowledge that can be applied by graduates in their tax practices. ITS is certified by the State Council of Education for Virginia (SCHEV) as a private career school and has been operating for more than 20 years (since 1989). Our founder and CEO has been a tax industry executive for more than 40 years and has managed hundreds of tax preparation offices employing thousands of tax preparers in several states. Our course content goes through rigorous editing processes and is high quality. In fact, ITS is ranked by TrendLists as the #1 site for online tax education.Back To Top

Currently, the IRS does not have a mandatory program for tax preparers. The IRS does have a voluntary Annual Filing Season Program (AFSP) for all unenrolled tax preparers. We recommend that all unenrolled tax preparers complete this program annually. You can learn more about the AFSP at the link below.

• IRS Annual Filing Season Program

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Our income tax courses are all open enrollment. You can register and start the course as soon as you receive your login information and are ready. User logins are issued within 24 business hours.Back To Top

Interactive courses include instructor support by email and automatic instructional feedback. All assignments and exams are graded instantly.Back To Top

Online means via the Internet. With the online courses, students receive instant feedback on the accuracy of each homework assignment, quiz, and exam. Students must successfully pass each chapter (70% is passing) before they can move on to the next one. An average of 80% or better is required for the Chartered Tax Professional certificate program. When students have a question or comment, they have a direct link to send an e-mail to our instructor support. Instructors will respond within two business days – maximum.Back To Top

All of our online tax courses are completely at your own pace. The term for courses over 45 hours is 6 months from date of registration. The term for courses from 31 – 45 hours is 4 months from date of registration. The term for courses up to 30 hours is 3 months from date of registration. The term for CE seminars of 6 hours or less is 1 month from the date of registration. The term for California CE courses is 3 months from the date of registration. For more than two 3-hour courses/seminars and up to five purchased at one time, we allow 3 months for completion from the date of registration. For six to ten 3-hour courses/seminars purchased at one time, we allow 4 months for completion from the date of registration. Students who do not finish the course within the allotted time frame may extend their term for a nominal reinstatement fee.Back To Top

You are able to set your own pace. We recommend that you complete at least one lesson per week, which would require ten weeks for each 10-lesson course. However, you could complete two lessons per week while also working full-time and finish each course in just 5 weeks. For our very popular 20-lesson Comprehensive Course, we recommend 2 lessons per week, so you may finish in 10 weeks. If your other commitments are less, you could finish even sooner.Back To Top

The time spent on each chapter will vary however; you should expect to spend 5-6 hours per chapter to read the chapter and the reading assignment, to complete lesson problems, and to complete homework assignments.Back To Top

With any course you take, we recommend that you complete 2 chapters per week; however, the course may be accelerated or more time can be taken if needed. You should try to complete at least one lesson per week.Back To Top

You may request an extension for another term for a nominal fee.Back To Top

All tax course text material and required reference material is available online with access 24 hours a day, 7 days a week at no additional cost. Purchasing a hard copy of the student text for an additional fee is optional since the chapter PDFs are available online for reading and/or printing. These materials (which include all necessary tax forms on CD for homework, quizzes, etc.) provide students the option to read offline. Hard copies save the students money and time by not having to print the text. For example, the COMPREHENSIVE textbooks have 4 modules with a total of more than 1,000 pages.

In addition, the textbook serves as a reference manual for future use when preparing tax returns. The online material will not be available after the course expiration date.

Any hard copy tax course materials will ship within 1 business day of your registration via UPS Ground or USPS. Alternative and international shipping methods are available for a fee. You must provide a physical street address, no P.O. Boxes.Back To Top

In order to take our online courses, you must have access to a computer and the Internet (high speed internet access is recommended). You can access the course contents from any web-enabled computer. You do not have to use the same computer to log-in to the course every time.The course works with Windows, MAC and Linux operating systems. We recommend that you have the latest version of Firefox.Adobe Readeris required to view the online material from our tax school.Back To Top

Our instructors respond to students on a first-come first-served basis and make every effort to respond within 24 hours. Two business days is the maximum response time.Back To Top

You can wait if you want to; however, everything you need is available online. The book is a great tool to have while taking the course so you don’t have to print everything out. It is also a great reference after you finish the course. Feel free to start your course now and just download anything you need until your book comes. It should only be a few days.Back To Top

Each Student is issued a unique username and password that is required to enter the secure area of the website where their student’s data is entered and stored.Back To Top

You will be allowed 2 attempts for chapter quizzes/tests and 1 attempt for final exams. You must successfully complete each section (70% is passing) before you are able to move on to the next one. An average of 80% or better is required to receive the Chartered Tax Professional designation.Back To Top

If you are in the middle of a graded assignment, you can simply save your place and sign off (just be sureNOTto click “submit all and finish”). When you sign back in you will be able to click “Continue the Last Attempt” and you will be able to continue your graded assignment from exactly where you left off. To make things easier for our students, we recommend downloading the assignment and completing it offline. Then all a student has to do is input the correct answers online. This is particularly helpful for students with a dial-up connection.Back To Top

Corrections to your student text will be posted in the Updates & Corrections forum in each course, at the beginning of each chapter.Back To Top

Upon successful completion of the course, you will be awarded a certificate of completion from The Income Tax School. You must obtain a final passing grade of 70% or greater to be awarded a certificate. An average of 80% or better is required for the Chartered Tax Professional certificate program.Back To Top

Once you complete your course, please click on the link within your course to request a certificate. Your certificate request will be processed and you will receive the certificate automatically via email. If you are in the CTP® program, your Chartered certificate will be issued after you have completed all courses with an average grade of 80% or more and have documented the 500 hours experience requirement to qualify for the CTP® designation.Back To Top

Yes, The Income Tax School is required to report CE completions for the first 3 quarters of the calendar yearonce per quarter.

• CE courses completed January 1- March 30- reported March 31
• CE courses completed April 1- June 29- reported June 30
• CE courses completed July 1- September 29- reported September 30
• Beginning October 1^st, The Income Tax School reports CE completion every 10 days through the end of the calendar year.

CTEC requires reporting every 10 days throughout the calendar year for both Continuing Education and Qualifying education. For Continuing Education, The Income Tax School reports daily in October, until October 31 at 11:59 PST.Back To Top

New regulations require all paid tax return preparers to obtain a Preparer Tax Identification Number (PTIN). The cost to obtain your PTIN is $64.25. Beginning Fall 2011, people who do not already have a PTIN will need to pass a competency test and background check. If you have already registered for your PTIN before the exam is available, you will have until December 31, 2013 to pass the IRS basic test of competency. Once you pass the exam, you will become an IRS Registered Tax Return Preparer (RTRP). Exception if you are an attorney, CPA or Enrolled Agent (and are active and in good standing with your licensing agency) you are exempt from the test requirement.Beginning 2012, the IRS will require 15 hours of continuing education for all registered Tax Preparers. Exception if you are an attorney, CPA or Enrolled Agent (and are active and in good standing with your licensing agency) you are exempt from the continuing education requirement. These professional accreditations generally already have continuing education requirements. The annual CE for Registered Tax Return Preparers must include:

• 10 hours of federal income tax law
• 3 hours of federal income tax law update
• 2 hours of ethics

Our Comprehensive Tax Course provides the educational foundation necessary to successfully pass the IRS Competency Exam (Wage and Non-business Income Form 1040 Examination). This course will enable you to prepare individual tax returns for the general public, including individual taxpayers who operate sole-proprietor businesses. At the completion of the course, you will be able to complete most individual non-business and small business (self-employed/Schedule C) tax returns and research tax issues. Included with the Comprehensive Course are Free IRS RTRP Exam practice questions to help you successfully pass the IRS Exam.Back To Top

Our 3-hour seminars have 15 questions and a learning activity that need to be completed. The learning activity usually has questions that follow. The questions are related to the forms or exercises completed in the learning activity.Back To Top