Easiest way to be allowed to prepare taxes, especially Sch E?

[Chris Mason]

Hi Tax Pros,

I'm a mortgage lender. We kind of have a love/hate relationship, but I'm probably never going to ask you for any sort of letter "guaranteeing" that Sally's business is "guaranteed" to make $X00k/yr for the next Y years, so that makes me better than most in your eyes, hopefully. 

So, anyways...

I'm sick to death of Schedule Es that are inaccurate, and tax professionals unwilling or unable to correct the inaccuracies in a timely manner. I'm certain that if you are reading this, that this does not apply to you. But many of your peers suck, just as the overwhelming majority of my fellow MLOs completely suck too. 

"If you want it done right, you've got to do it yourself," right?

What is the lowest level of licensing, etc, needed to simply be able to do it myself? Honestly, my impression is that your profession is just as full of incompetent idiots as mine. 

My most common gripe is Schedule E, Box 2. If the client bought the rental property half way through the year, how can "Fair Rental Days" possibly be 365, or even worse left blank? When that grievous error is made, it means a mortgage underwriter is going to default to dividing six months of rental income by 12 months, and effectively only give credit for half of the actual rent - the mortgage underwriter is just reading what you wrote! Screwed even worse if the person bought in Nov or Dec. Number 2 is putting one-time capital expenditures on line 14 "repairs" rather than line 18. You can't depreciate a new roof for someone whose income is trending upwards, so they can save on their net IRS bills long-term? Seriously? The whole point of using a professional is to save on the tax bill! Come on!

In both sets of those example routine errors that >75% of tax professionals (who are mostly idiots, just like my profession) will make 100% of the time (and there are MANY others) it can be solved on a refinance transaction where timing isn't an issue, but our time-sensitive purchase transactions - where it takes the tax professional more than 48 hours to respond to a simple email with clarity when we have a 21 day close of escrow that the client is contractually obligated to (I'm already hearing your common sense objections, and do not disagree, but most tax professionals take days and weeks to respond to simple emails) - are sometimes screwed up. Or, even worse, the tax professional wants to charge the client money because they, as the tax professional, screwed up and can't tell the difference between replacing a roof and replacing a light bulb.

I just want to be able to do 1040s and Schedule E accurately, and have the knowledge needed to do so. Not inflating income or lying or anything else, simple accuracy is the standard that I'd like to meet that many tax professionals (presumably excluding those reading this post), unfortunately, can't seem to meet. What is the minimum amount of government BS required to be able to accurately complete 1040s that include Sch E?

Also, if any tax professional reading this wants to get on the horn and review the most common errors that screw their clients over when it comes time to get a mortgage, I'd be more than happy. I think most of the errors are from cases where the error will not impact the client's tax burden, so the tax professional doesn't worry about it. It might not impact that tax burden, but it very well could be the cause of a mortgage loan denial!