Most practitioners have no trouble finding continuing education (CE) hours: free webinars are plentiful, and plenty of paid courses compete for the rest. The harder question is whether those hours make the practitioner more competent, which is why the requirement exists.
An enrolled agent (EA) needs 72 hours of CE per enrollment cycle, including at least 16 hours each year with two hours of ethics. Circular 230 §10.6(e)(2). Certified public accountants (CPAs) have varying requirements, and PTIN holders can elect to participate in the Annual Filing Season Program (AFSP) if they earn sufficient CE, among other requirements.
What Quality CE Looks Like
Quality CE leaves the practitioner able to do something they could not do before. A few features usually separate it from filler:
A knowledgeable instructor. The instructor knows the content and how to apply it in the real world, and can answer participant questions. The instructor should also be honest about the boundaries of their knowledge and acknowledge that a quick answer may not be appropriate due to complexities.
Written materials with citations. A manual or outline that cites the Code, regulations, and IRS guidance lets the practitioner check the instructor’s conclusions and use the materials as a reference long after the session ends. If the only handout is a PowerPoint deck with no citations, avoid the course.
Worked examples. Rules make more sense when they are applied to realistic facts with the numbers shown.
Updated content. The tax law changes every year, and a course using slides from five years ago likely misses what has changed.
Content that stands on its own. A participant can apply what they learned without buying a product.
Most of these features are instructor-dependent. Education marketing should clearly disclose the instructor so the practitioner can make an informed choice when deciding whether or not to attend.
Excellent Education Is Worth Paying For
Good education costs money because it costs the instructor time, and they likely spent decades building the expertise behind it. A quality course requires current research, written materials, worked examples, and the depth to field questions.
Price alone is not a definite measure of quality, however. An expensive course can be thin on technical content, and a modestly priced one can be excellent. Practitioners should judge a course by the instructor’s record and the depth of the materials.
The Dangers of Free CE
Most free CE is a sales funnel. For example, I publish free content and have free webinars available, and they build my list and bring people to my paid offerings. Software and other industry vendors pay to offer free CE for the same reason.
A sales funnel is fine when the free content stands on its own with respect to quality. The test is simple: take the vendor out and ask whether anything useful is left. The line is crossed when the information cannot be applied without the product. Examples include a “workflow optimization” webinar that is really a software demonstration or a “tax planning” seminar where every strategy needs the presenter’s proprietary tool. These courses are sales calls with a CE certificate attached. IRS standards treat sales-oriented presentations and non-tax software training as unacceptable for enrolled agent CE, so a vendor demonstration with an IRS program number may not hold up as qualifying hours.
Free CE has a second but quieter cost. It rarely goes deep enough to truly impact how a practitioner handles a difficult scenario or a representation case. Free content is likely not always updated as quickly as paid content. A practitioner who only collects free hours may be doing themselves a disservice.
In-Person vs. Webinar CE
Webinars are very efficient: there is no travel, they cost less, and they easily fit in a practitioner’s work schedule. That convenience is also the weakness: a webinar running in one window while email and client files sit open in another counts for CE credit but rarely produces much learning. Practitioners frequently multitask and then remember little of what was said during the course.
In-person education gets the practitioner’s full attention along with:
Direct access to the instructor, including the follow-up question after the session that turns a general rule into a specific answer for a client situation.
Conversations with peers working through the same problems and facing the same challenges, which often teach as much as the session itself.
Relationships with colleagues that turn into referrals, collaboration, and informal mentorship over time.
Plan for Competence, Not Hours
Circular 230 §10.35(a) requires "...the competence a matter requires. Competent practice 'requires the appropriate level of knowledge, skill, thoroughness, and preparation.'" The number of CE hours earned does not measure competence: a year of low-quality CE meets the letter of a practitioner’s license requirements yet leaves them where they started personally and professionally.
Here are my recommendations for an annual CE strategy:
The one course every tax professional needs is an annual federal tax update from a trusted source that provides substantive written materials (this does not have to be a 500-page book, but it could be). It should narrowly cover changes to the tax law in the last one to two years, and should not exceed six to eight hours in length.
Attend at least one in-person event per year, whether it is a local one-day seminar or a multi-day large conference, to connect and collaborate with colleagues and build peer relationships.
Pick at least one area to grow into each year and pursue serious education in it from different sources, or find a quality instructor and take the classes they offer.
Use free CE sessions to supplement learning and stay aware of developments and products, but do not rely on them as a primary learning vehicle.
After taking a CE class, identify clients or processes that can benefit from the knowledge gained, and set a future task to implement the information.
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Very good points which I hadn't thought of