Not all accountants practice tax.
To the contrary, I suspect most accountants do not. The confusion, I suspect, has to do with the CPA license. One associates the license with practicing at a CPA firm, but that is not necessarily true. Most accountants do not practice at a firm, and just practicing at a firm does not mean that one works tax. I have worked with a firm my entire career, and there have been many CPAs – auditors, forensics, valuation experts and so on – who have little crossover with tax. Step outside a firm – say internal audit or accounting at a corporate employer – and those numbers only increase.
I am looking at a pro se case in the Tax Court.
We have discussed pro se many times. It is commonly described as a taxpayer representing himself/herself before the Court. That technically is not true. A taxpayer can have professional representation and still be considered pro se. What it means is that the representative does not have a license to independently practice before the Court. The representative can act as an agent, advocating for and advising a taxpayer, but without that license the taxpayer is still considered pro se.
That license requires one to pass an exam, and the Tax Court exam is commonly considered one of the more challenging exams in tax practice. The exam BTW is not about tax law; rather it is about rules and procedures at the Tax Court. I have been involved in this area for decades, and I admit that those rules and procedures can be a bit … arcane.
Eva Zaczek finds herself in Tax Court. There is only one issue: how much does she owe? The answer in turn depends on how much of her Affordable Care (that is, Obamacare) subsidy was overpaid and now has to be returned. The concept is straightforward: make little money and the subsidy might fully pay for the premiums; make too much money and there is no subsidy at all. The rub is that someone is applying for the subsidy early in the tax year, before knowing what income for the year will be. Take a promotion or job change or marriage – or just ignore the too-much-income issue altogether - and the numbers can swing hard.
The IRS sent Eva a Notice of Deficiency for $2,418.
COMMENT: Eva sent a handwritten tax return, and the IRS made mistakes reading her writing.
To its credit, the IRS admitted its mistake and revised the balance due to $900.
Eva challenged the calculation.
The rub was line 11 of Form 8962 Premium Tax Credit.
Both Eva and the IRS agreed that the number in box 11(b) should be $7,294.
This box represents the maximum premium that can be subsidized.
Both agreed that box 11(c) should be $9,057.
This amount represents the amount of premium the taxpayer is expected to pay himself/herself, without subsidy.
Eva calculated box 11(d) as $1,763 ($9,057 - $7,294).
Eva got the numbers reversed. Box 11(d) should be minus $1,763 ($7,294 - $9,057).
So?
If you read the instructions, box 11(d) cannot go below zero ($-0-).
Eva was convinced she owed the IRS $1,763.
The IRS said no, no: you only owe us $900.
And Eva was in Court arguing that she owed the $1,763 and not the $900 the IRS was seeking.
Here is the Court:
I will spare both us the difference in tax law between a “deficiency” and a “balance due,” other than to point out the IRS notice that got Eva into Tax Court is called a Notice of Deficiency.
Pro se cases have a reputation for being entertaining, and we have looked at a number of them over the years.
But to go to Tax Court to argue that one owes more than the IRS wants? And this action from an accountant?
I consider this to be shade:
I truly, truly hope that Eva doesn’t practice anywhere near a tax return.
This time we talked about Eva Zaczek v Commissioner, docket 4667-25S, filed 7/15/26.
