User:TomBlairEA/History of the Enrolled Agent Profession

ENROLLED AGENT: Uniquely-American Profession and a Brief History

Few American taxpayers have ever heard of the profession of Enrolled Agent (EA for short) and fewer still know what the Enrolled Agent designation means or the services of an EA can be of benefit to them, and almost no one knows anything about its' uniquely-American history. There exists a researched and privately-developed "fleshed out" time line of the history of the Enrolled Agent available from this author, but due to limited space, this brief article provides an outline of that data for use by Enrolled Agents themselves and also for public education on the subject.

The history of the EA originates with passage of the 1884 federal legislation commonly termed "The Horse Act" or "The Enabling Act." As the result of confiscation by federal forces during the American Civil War of non-combantant's personal property, including horses and mules, the U S Congress determined that the time came to reimburse those non-combantants for their confiscated property. Unfortunately, far too many fraudulent claims resulted with passage of this "Horse Act", so congress later established a means to establish a cadre of "persons of good report" to act as agents that worked with and between the claimants and the U S Treasury. The regulations authorized attorneys and "agents" to perform this valuable service...the word "agents" simply described those who were not in fact attorneys in the original 1884 legislation.

Among the vague classification of "agents" were those who would later become historically and publicly identified as Certified Public Accountants (CPAs) and Enrolled Agents (EAs).

Under current federal regulations, and in reference to IRS Circular 230, today attorneys and CPAs, who are licensed by the individual states, and EAs who are licensd by the federal government itself, and a few others, are the only professionals permitted by federal law to represent taxpayers before all three IRS administrative divisions: Examinations (i.e.: audits), Collections and Appeals.

To learn more about EAs, visit www.naea.org and/or www.irs.gov and/or www.TomBlairEA.com