Becoming a Chartered Tax Professional (CTP®) can significantly enhance your salary and your advancement potential as a tax professional.
- Students can start working and earning money while completing coursework.
- After successfully completing the first course in the CTP® tax professional certificate program, (most students finish in just 10 weeks or less) you will be qualified to prepare individual tax returns for almost all U.S. taxpayers.
While you apply what you’ve learned and earn money as a tax preparer, you continue your tax professional certificate studies in advanced individual tax preparation which will enable you to serve clients with more complex tax situations and increase your earning potential. Next you learn to prepare returns for small business corporations and partnerships and more complex sole proprietorships. This opens up a new, more lucrative market for you while you continue to learn to help small businesses with more complex tax situations.
As you complete the series of courses that comprise the CTP® tax professional certificate program over the span of two tax seasons, you will accumulate the required 500 hours of experience as a tax professional to qualify for the prestigious Chartered Tax Professional designation.
There is a shortage of qualified tax preparers and, therefore, a great demand for seasonal tax preparers.
As long as you meet a tax firm’s employment criteria, with the tax knowledge you will gain from the initial courses, you should be able to easily get a job with a local tax preparation firm. Alternatively, you could become self-employed as a tax professional. Upon successful completion of the tax professional certificate program, you will receive a very impressive CTP® certificate when you meet the final experience requirements. As a CTP®, you will have the tax knowledge and experience to prepare for the IRS Enrolled Agent (EA) exam if you wish to add the coveted EA credential to your professional designation as a CTP®.
If you are a CPA, CFP, attorney, or if you hold some other professional license, you may be able to satisfy some or all of your continuing education requirements through your coursework in the CTP® tax professional certificate program. Income tax knowledge is also valuable to many professionals because financial decisions usually involve tax consequences for their clients. Providing tax preparation services is also a great way to diversify and recruit new financial services clients.
The CTP® tax professional certificate program is unique in that you will have the opportunity to earn money as a professional while you study, and to also internalize the knowledge by applying what you learn.
Register for the Chartered Tax Professional Certificate Program