Enrolled Agent Readiness: Represent Taxpayers Before the IRS
Signature Course No. 446 — A Signature AI Socratic Coaching Course.
Built for experienced tax preparers — your coach starts where you are.
A New Kind of Learning
Socratic coaching, delivered by an agentic AI coach.
Not a course you watch. An AI coach you work with.
The Lighthouse Coach begins by discovering how you think about the subject, teaches what is missing, and gives you realistic practice before asking you to prove that you can use it. You may test out of concepts you already understand, while capstones turn the learning into a practical plan, decision, conversation, or other real-world result.
The curriculum is deliberately authored; the AI delivers it through coaching. It is not an AI randomly generating lessons.
A coach that teaches by asking — not by lecturing
The Lighthouse Coach is an AI Socratic coach built on Cognosco Learning's Enrolled Agent Readiness: Represent Taxpayers Before the IRS course, in the Sales, Service & Revenue category. It does not play videos at you. It holds a conversation: it asks you a question, listens to your answer, names the misconception it hears, affirms what you got right, and asks the next question — the way a great coach works in the room.
Authority first, duties second, facts third, strategy last. An enrolled agent is a federally authorized tax practitioner: the credential is earned by examination, held under discipline, and exercised inside a body of rules — above all Circular 230 — that governs what you may do, what you must do, and what will cost you the credential itself. The running practice in this course is Ostermar Tax Practice, a small representation firm used throughout so that duties stop being abstractions. The firm is invented. The duties are not.
It starts with the border. Who may practice, under what authority, with what authorization from the client, and under what duties of diligence, candor, confidentiality, and fee discipline — because a power of attorney signed in favor of someone without practice rights does not cure the defect, and a brilliant strategy argued by someone with no standing to argue it is a letter the Service may disregard. Your first professional act in any matter is the one-sentence authority statement: if the sentence cannot be written, the engagement cannot begin.
It works in two movements. First, Module 1 — The Authority and the Duties — work through Concepts 1–9, finishing with The Representation Plan; then, Module 2 — The Controversy and the Credential — work through Concepts 10–18, finishing with The Controversy Strategy File.
Both capstones produce real artifacts — a representation plan for a live field examination: the authority sentence and recorded authorizations, the engagement terms with their exclusions and divergence provision, the duties audit, the information plan, and the opening sequence with its rights ledger; and a controversy strategy file for an inherited multi-track case — the authority page and every clock, the record as Appeals will read it, the forum strategy priced across Appeals, collection, and penalties, and the closing page of the Representative's Standard.
The honesty standard is part of the course. Readiness is what this course offers. It does not promise that you will pass any examination, prevail in any controversy, or obtain any outcome for any client — no honest course can. And because tax law changes year by year and notice by notice, the course teaches at the level of principle, structure, and duty, and instructs you, repeatedly and on purpose, to verify the current figure, the current form, and the current procedure before you act.
The course is self-paced and always on — roughly 30 minutes per concept, about 9 hours in full, taken in as many sittings as you like. You can type your answers, or talk out loud: the Voice Coach speaks its questions and listens to your spoken replies. Learners who already know the material can test out concept by concept.
Enrolled Agent Readiness: Represent Taxpayers Before the IRS is part of The Lighthouse Signature Series — the online counterpart to the one-day, in-person learning Cognosco Learning delivers.
Course Facts
One full concept, coached end to end — free: verify your email and we’ll send you a link to start.
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Diagnose → Learn & Practice → Prove → Capstone
Every learner moves through the same discipline a Cognosco instructor would insist on in the room.
Diagnose
The Coach starts where the course starts: with your authority. For the last three matters you touched, could you write the one-sentence authority statement for each — credential, source, and scope — without hesitation? Where exactly does your current right to practice stop: which forums, which taxpayers, which tax years are outside it? And have you ever described your credential in words a client could reasonably hear as broader than the rights you actually hold? Every concept opens with three questions that locate where you actually stand, and your answers shape how deeply the Coach works the concept with you. Everyone begins with Module 1 — no skipping the foundations you only think you have.
Learn & Practice
Work each concept in conversation with the Coach — spoken or written — then practice it against realistic situations until it holds up.
Prove
Every concept ends in proof: answer the check cold and demonstrate the skill. Know it already? Test out and take credit immediately.
Capstone
Finish with two capstones — The Representation Plan for Module 1 and The Controversy Strategy File for Module 2 — that pull the whole course together, and earn the certificate.
What You'll Learn
Name the authority, name the duty, name the deadline — in that order, before any move. Every skill in this course is the representative's reflex at work: state the source and scope of your right to act, identify the duty that governs the step in front of you, compute the clock that runs on it — and only then take up strategy, on facts you have verified.
Module 1 lays the foundation of the practice. Who may practice and on what authority; Circular 230 as the rulebook of the practice; the power of attorney read for its edges; taxpayer rights as the floor beneath every case; the engagement formed in writing; diligence and competence as systems; fees, conflicts, and candor where loyalty is tested; confidentiality and disclosure; and the examination's opening moves — notices, requests, and the first meeting.
Module 2 puts that foundation to work in the rooms where representation actually happens. Closing the examination on a priced choice among agree, disagree, or escalate; collection — liens, levies, and the alternatives that come first; Appeals and the hazards conversation; penalties and relief evaluated by doctrine; claims, amendments, and the limitations clocks that run both ways; business and payroll matters and personal exposure; ethics under pressure; and the lens turned on the credential examination itself, and on the standard you will hold your own files to.
And it holds its boundary throughout. This course begins where a return becomes a controversy or a client. It does not teach you how to prepare or file your own return, and nothing in it is tax advice to any real taxpayer — real cases turn on real facts, current law, and the full record, and they belong with a practitioner who has all three.
What you will learn
- State who may practice before the IRS and on what authority
- Obtain, scope, and honor a valid authorization to represent
- Run an engagement from intake through closing letter without losing a deadline, a conflict, or a confidence
- Apply the Circular 230 duties — diligence, competence, candor, fee limits, conflict rules, and the duty to correct errors — to facts that resist easy answers
- Protect taxpayer information under the disclosure rules
- Work an examination to a defensible outcome
- Choose among collection alternatives on principle rather than panic
- Present a case in Appeals
- Evaluate penalty relief honestly
- Prepare for the enrollment examination itself with a method that tests judgment, not recall alone
Everything in the course
- All 18 concepts of Enrolled Agent Readiness: Represent Taxpayers Before the IRS, in 2 modules
- A starting-point check first — the Coach finds where you actually stand before teaching
- Learn, Practice, Prove for every concept — no passive video watching
- A test-out on every concept: prove you know it and move on
- The Voice Coach: talk with the Coach out loud — it speaks, listens, and replies
- A personal Learner Record of your work across the course
- Two capstone exercises: The Representation Plan and The Controversy Strategy File
- A printable session summary whenever you pause
- The Lighthouse Coach completion certificate (Signature Series)
- Your progress is saved as you go — stop anytime, resume where you left off
Built for the people who stand between taxpayers and the Service
The tax professional preparing to sit for the Special Enrollment Examination — who wants readiness built on the judgment the examination samples, not on memorizing answers without the underlying discipline; and the unenrolled preparer who wants to understand exactly where limited practice ends and full representation begins.
The newly enrolled agent — who passed an examination but has not yet been tested by a revenue agent, a revenue officer, or a client asking for something that cannot be done.
This course assumes you already understand how a tax return works at the level of an experienced preparer. It does not assume you have ever signed a power of attorney, answered an information document request, or sat across a table from the Service with a client's future on the line.
Prefer to learn live and in person? The same material anchors Cognosco's one-day programs — browse the in-person catalog.
Start with Who May Practice
$195 — introductory price. One payment. No subscription, no password to manage.
Here is exactly what happens when you enroll:
- Pay securely with Stripe — you are taken straight into the course
- Create your learner profile and begin the Module 1 starting-point check
- Save the access key you are given — it restores your enrollment on any device
- Learn at your pace; your progress is stored in your browser on your device
For the full voice experience, use Chrome and allow the microphone when asked. Typing your answers works everywhere, all the time. Questions before you enroll? Email hello@cognoscolearning.com.
Before you enroll
What is a Socratic coaching session?
A conversation, not a video. Your coach asks a question; you answer — out loud by voice, or by typing — and the coach responds to what you said: naming the misconception it hears, affirming what you got right, and asking the next question. You advance only when you have mastered each concept, so a finished course means the learning held.
How long does it take — and how long do I have?
About 30 minutes per concept. Learn in sittings of any length; your progress is saved as you go. You have a full year from purchase to finish, and you can revisit and retake within that year.
What does the certificate verify?
That you completed every concept and both capstones of this course. Anyone can confirm a Cognosco certificate online — enter its certificate ID on our verification page.
What if it isn't for me — what are the refunds?
If you have not started, cancel for a full refund within seven days of purchase. Once you have started, there is no cash refund — stop before finishing and we credit the full amount you paid toward any other course in the library (credit valid one year from your original purchase). Once you complete the course, no refund or credit applies.
More Signature Courses are coming
Enrolled Agent Readiness: Represent Taxpayers Before the IRS is Signature Course No. 446. Leave your email and we'll send you news of future Signature Courses and Lighthouse updates as they are announced — nothing else.