A variety of rules place ethical constraints on the advice that tax practitioners can give clients. This webinar covers statutory, regulatory and ethical standards governing those who practice in the tax field, emphasizing current issues in the application of the rules of professional conduct, Circular 230 (governing those admitted to practice before the Internal Revenue Service), and provisions of the Internal Revenue Code and the Treasury Regulations governing return preparers.
Publication Date: March 2021
Designed For
Tax practitioners at all levels who advise clients on tax positions.
Topics Covered
- Circular 230
- Rules of professional conduct applying to tax professionals
- Preparer penalty rules
- American Bar Association sets out standards for attorneys in its Model Rules of Professional Conduct
Learning Objectives
- Recognize who is a preparer for the preparer penalty rules and what penalties may apply to tax return preparers
- Describe the requirements of Circular 230 and what is a covered opinion
- Discuss intersection of state professional conduct rules and IRS Office of Professional Responsibility rules
- Identify common ethical pitfalls arising in tax practice
- Recognize which standards were set forth by the American Bar Association
- Describe what Internal Revenue Code section 7216 requires or prohibits
- Recognize ethical obligations a tax practitioner has to the government
- Describe how a practitioner may be sanctioned with respect to conduct
- Describe the result of the court's decision in Loving v. IRS
- Identify what the AFSP allows the IRS to regulate
- Describe how competence requires written advice
- Recognize how standards applicable to tax returns, documents, affidavits, and other papers apply
Level
Basic
Instructional Method
Self-Study
NASBA Field of Study
Regulatory Ethics (2 hours)
Program Prerequisites
None
Advance Preparation
None
Instructor
Jennifer Kowal
Jennifer Kowal, JD, has been a tax professor and the director of the graduate tax program at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles since 2003. Loyola’s graduate tax program offers an LL.M. in Taxation for attorneys and a Master in Tax Law for non-lawyers. Professor Kowal teaches courses in advanced income taxation, income tax timing issues, corporate taxation, and tax research, among others. Prior to teaching at Loyola, Professor Kowal taught in the International Tax Program at Harvard Law School.
She also practiced law with the firms of Irell & Manella in Los Angeles and Ropes & Gray in Boston, advising clients on the taxation of various business transactions, including cross-border, partnership and corporate structures. Professor Kowal holds a BS in Accounting with distinction from the University of Kansas, and a JD from UCLA School of Law, where she was a member of the Order of the Coif.