SEE-3 - Practices and Procedures (31% of the exam) - Section 1.1

Define practice before the IRS and identify who is authorised to represent taxpayers, including the scope of an enrolled agent's representation rights under Circular 230.

Define practice before the IRS as presentations relating to a taxpayer's rights, privileges, or liabilities, and distinguish the unlimited representation rights of enrolled agents, attorneys, and CPAs from the limited rights of Annual Filing Season Program participants. Recognise that merely preparing a return is not practice before the IRS, but representing a taxpayer in an examination, collection, or appeal is.

Circular 230Practice before the IRSUnlimited representation rightsEnrolled agent

Practice question for this objective

Free samplePractices and Proceduresmedium

Which statement correctly distinguishes the limited representation rights of an Annual Filing Season Program participant from the unlimited rights of an enrolled agent?

AA programme participant may represent any taxpayer before the appeals and collection functions, whereas an enrolled agent is confined to the examination function for clients whose returns the agent prepared.
BA programme participant and an enrolled agent hold identical representation rights, because completing the Annual Filing Season Program confers the same authority to practise as passing the enrolled agent examination.
CA programme participant may represent clients before collection officers but not appeals officers, while an enrolled agent may represent clients before appeals officers but not collection officers.
DA programme participant may represent only clients whose returns the participant prepared and signed, and only before examination-level personnel, while an enrolled agent may represent any taxpayer before any IRS function. Correct

Distinguish an Annual Filing Season Program participant's limited rights, tied to returns they prepared and before examination personnel, from an enrolled agent's unlimited rights. The programme grants a narrow privilege anchored to returns the participant prepared and signed and confined to examination-level personnel such as revenue agents, while the enrolled agent's credential carries full representation authority before every IRS function for every taxpayer.

Why A is wrong: This reverses the two regimes, which is tempting because both involve return preparers, but it is the enrolled agent who has unlimited reach and the programme participant who is confined, so the mapping is backwards.

Why B is wrong: Treating the two credentials as equivalent feels intuitive given both allow some representation, but the programme grants only limited rights while enrolment grants unlimited rights, so equating them is wrong.

Why C is wrong: Splitting the functions this way sounds like a tidy division of labour, but a programme participant reaches neither collection nor appeals, and an enrolled agent reaches both, so the option misstates each side.

Why D is correct: An Annual Filing Season Program participant has limited rights tied to returns they prepared and signed and may appear only before revenue agents and similar examination personnel, whereas the enrolled agent's rights are unlimited; this states the distinction correctly.

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Exam traps in Practices and Procedures

Answers that look right on this material and are not. Each one is a distractor from a different question in the SEE-3 bank for this domain.

They may represent a taxpayer before the IRS only on the returns they personally prepared and signed, and only while the matter remains within the examination function of the agency.
Why it is wrong: This describes the limited rights of an Annual Filing Season Program participant, which can mislead, but unlimited holders are not confined to returns they prepared or to the examination function, so the statement understates their authority.
Written consent from the firm that originally prepared the return, because representation authority over a return passes only with the preparing firm's release of the engagement.
Why it is wrong: A handover formality between firms sounds professional, but no Circular 230 rule conditions an enrolled agent's authority on the prior preparer's consent, so this requirement is fabricated.
Only the examination function, because the right to represent a taxpayer in collection and appeals matters is reserved to attorneys admitted to practise before the United States Tax Court.
Why it is wrong: Reserving collection and appeals for Tax Court attorneys sounds like a jurisdictional limit, but enrolled agents share the same unlimited reach as attorneys before the IRS, so confining them to examination is wrong.

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