AFSP Tax Law Update Course Requirements

Who can take tax law update courses for credit

Exempt Tax Preparers

Although you are exempt from taking the 6 hour AFTR course, Exempt Preparers must complete a 3 hour Federal tax law update course, in addition to completing 10 hours of any Federal tax law subject courses and a 2 hour tax ethics course.

Enrolled Agents

Enrolled Agents can take any amount of tax update courses for credit.

All tax update hours apply towards the annual  CPE requirements.

Non-Exempt Tax Preparers

Non-exempt preparers should NOT take tax update courses.

Tax update courses duplicate some of the content in the required 6 hour Annual Federal Tax Refresher (AFTR) course.

Tax preparers who are classified as “Exempt” are exempt from taking the Annual Federal Tax Refresher (AFTR) course as part of obtaining the IRS Annual Filing Season Program (AFSP) credential.  See Am I Exempt or Non-Exempt? for further clarification.  Instead of taking the AFTR course, however, they are required to take a Tax Law Update course.

How the Federal tax law update course is reported

Valid courses must have an IRS course number

 

CPE providers are required to obtain a course number from the IRS for any IRS CE course offered. The course number should be printed on your certificate of completion.

When you login to your IRS PTIN account to check your reported CE hours, the Tax Update courses are reported separately.

IRS course numbers look like this:

FAE6R-U-00122-16-S

The components to the course number are:

FAE6RCE Provider number (for FunCPE)
UUpdate
00122Course number
16First year course offered
SSelf-study

Problems with taking more than 3 hours of Tax Update courses

The IRS states in an FAQ that any excess tax law update hours will count towards your general Federal Tax law course hours:

“11. What if a preparer has more federal tax update credits than is required for the federal tax law update category in any one calendar year?
The excess federal tax update credit will count toward their federal tax law requirement for that particular calendar year. The PTIN system will automatically apply the excess credit hours to the federal tax law category, although the excess will still show in the PTIN holder’s Federal Tax Update category in the preparer’s online account.”

But students have reported that after taking 4-5 hour tax update courses from other CPE providers:

  • The IRS was not automatically calculating any excess update hours and adding them to the general Federal tax law hours.  As a result the IRS did not issue the notice of eligibility for the AFSP
  • When contacted, the IRS representative stated the the excess update hours would NOT count towards your general hours, contrary to the FAQ response above.

Our recommendation

Our recommendation is that you not expect any extra hours to count towards your total.  Play it safe and take extra general Federal Tax hours to make sure you meet the 10 hour general tax law hours requirement for exempt preparers.

You should monitor your PTIN account to make sure hours get reported and your get the AFSP notice.  Normally you should get the AFSP notice within 7-10 days of completing all your required CPE.

FunCPE is an IRS Approved CE Provider

 

Approved IRS CE provider for EA and AFSP

How to pass the
AFTR course

How to pass the Annual Federal Tax Refresher strategies

Get the strategies here!

 

How to get the AFSP Record of Completion

IRS AFSP Record of Completion for Tax Preparers

Follow our four step process