Rule explainer Not legal advice

Circular 230 and how you market tax work

Read this to find out whether Treasury's practice rules reach the page you are about to publish, and what they ask of it once they do. It runs in the rule's own order: who it binds, what it forbids, what you may say about fees, and how long you keep a copy.

The ruleTreasury Department Circular No. 230, at 31 CFR Part 10. Solicitation is §10.30, written advice §10.37. Enforced by the IRS Office of Professional Responsibility, which §10.1 gives exclusive responsibility for practitioner discipline. Sources at the foot of this page.

How the rulebook changed

Before June 2014The standing noticeFirms appended a Circular 230 paragraph to tax emails and articles. It answered a Treasury regime on tax opinions, and was never a marketing rule.
June 12, 2014T.D. 9668 rewrites the middle§10.35 becomes two sentences on competence, §10.36 puts firm procedures on a named individual, §10.37 sets one standard for written advice.
Since thenJudged on how it was formed§10.37 covers written advice rendered after that date, expressly including advice given electronically. It grades the work behind a page, not anything appended.

Scope

Does it reach you?

Most CPAs read Circular 230 as a representation rulebook: audits, notices, powers of attorney. Four situations cover almost everyone here, and the first is the surprise.

Who it governsPart 10 “contains rules governing the recognition of attorneys, certified public accountants, enrolled agents … and other persons representing taxpayers before the Internal Revenue Service.” §10.0(a).

You are a CPA and some of what you publish is about federal tax

It reaches you, earlier than you think

The sentence to read is §10.3(b). A CPA files no declaration with the IRS before rendering written advice covered by §10.37, “but their rendering of this advice is practice before the Internal Revenue Service.”

Your firm publishes bookkeeping, audit and outsourced-controller content only

A different rulebook

§10.30 restricts a practitioner “with respect to any Internal Revenue Service matter”, and a page about month-end close is not one. Not a free pass: the AICPA Code and your state board reach how you describe the firm whatever the subject.

The Code's side of it →

You are an enrolled agent, or your firm employs one

Reached, with a clause written at you

Enrolled agents are practitioners in their own right under §10.3(c). §10.30(a)(1) then adds a sentence nobody else has to read: in describing the designation, you may not use the word “certified” or imply an employer relationship with the IRS.

The post is about tax, but a marketer at the firm wrote it

Ask who signs for the tax practice

The rule binds a practitioner, not a website, so a ghostwritten post reads as outside it. It is not. §10.30(a)(1) forbids a practitioner to “use or participate in the use of” a public communication, and §10.36 puts the firm's principal tax authority on the hook for procedures. Someone owns that page.

The switch

What turns a page into an IRS matter

Circular 230 has no definition of advertising, no list of formats and no mention of a blog. It has a trigger phrase, repeated twice in one short section: the restrictions apply “with respect to any Internal Revenue Service matter”. The test is subject and purpose, never format.

The companion phrase is in the definitions. Practice before the agency is everything “connected with a presentation” about a taxpayer's rights, privileges or liabilities, and the named examples include rendering written advice. Once a page does that, two sections run at once: §10.30 on how you solicited the work, §10.37 on how you formed it.

DefinitionsPractitioner at §10.2(a)(5), which points at §10.3. Practice before the Internal Revenue Service at §10.2(a)(4). Source 4.

Does Circular 230 reach it?

Worked examples

Worked from the rule's own trigger words. Where a real page lands is a judgement about your facts, and two of these genuinely go either way.

The core of it

What §10.30 says, in the rule's order

Shorter than its reputation, and mostly about money rather than claims. One sentence bans the claims. The rest covers fees, retention, and who you may not take work from. Left, the text as written. Right, what it means when the communication is a page on your site.

Reading noteThe middle column is verbatim from §10.30(a)(1) through (d). Paragraph letters sit in the left margin. Source 1.

31 CFR §10.30, as written

Point at either side to link them

Verbatim

In plain English

(a)Advertising and solicitation restrictions.

(a)(1)

A practitioner may not, with respect to any Internal Revenue Service matter, in any way use or participate in the use of any form of public communication or private solicitation containing a false, fraudulent, or coercive statement or claim; or a misleading or deceptive statement or claim

In plain EnglishTwo phrases do the work. “Misleading or deceptive” sits alongside false, so a page can be accurate line by line and fail on the impression it leaves. “Participate in the use of” reaches a page you commissioned rather than wrote.

(a)(1)

Enrolled agents, enrolled retirement plan agents, or registered tax return preparers, in describing their professional designation, may not utilize the term “certified” or imply an employer/employee relationship with the Internal Revenue Service

In plain EnglishThe only place the section dictates wording, and it supplies its own safe forms, among them “enrolled to practice before the Internal Revenue Service”. A CPA is not named, certified being the C in the credential.

(a)(2)

Any lawful solicitation made by or on behalf of a practitioner eligible to practice before the Internal Revenue Service must, nevertheless, clearly identify the solicitation as such and, if applicable, identify the source of the information used in choosing the recipient

In plain EnglishAimed at the uninvited approach: the cold email, the bought list, the campaign built from public filings. Two things must show on its face: that it is a solicitation, and where you got the name.

(b)(1)

A practitioner may publish the availability of a written schedule of fees and disseminate the following fee information: Fixed fees for specific routine services. Hourly rates. Range of fees for particular services. Fee charged for an initial consultation.

In plain EnglishA permission, not a restriction, and it answers the question firms actually ask. You may put prices on your website, in four named shapes. One condition: where costs may arise, say whether the client pays them.

(b)(2)

A practitioner may charge no more than the rate(s) published under paragraph (b)(1) of this section for at least 30 calendar days after the last date on which the schedule of fees was published

In plain EnglishA price is a promise with a term on it, running from the last date the schedule was published, so a page edited in March restarts in March. The interactive below is this sentence.

(c)

In the case of direct mail and e-commerce communications, the practitioner must retain a copy of the actual communication, along with a list or other description of persons to whom the communication was mailed or otherwise distributed. The copy must be retained by the practitioner for a period of at least 36 months from the date of the last transmission or use.

In plain EnglishThirty-six months, counted from last use rather than publication. Written for mailers, never updated for a page that sits on a site for years.

(d)

A practitioner may not, in matters related to the Internal Revenue Service, assist, or accept assistance from, any person or entity who, to the knowledge of the practitioner, obtains clients or otherwise practices in a manner forbidden under this section.

In plain EnglishThe paragraph that reaches your suppliers. A lead generator running claims you could not run yourself becomes your problem once you know it.

Quoted text is the regulation's own, run together where the source sets it as a list. The right-hand column is our rendering and is not part of the rule. Source 1.

Vocabulary

Four words that carry the weight

Most arguments about a tax firm's draft turn out to be arguments about one of these.

An IRS matter

The switch. §10.30 restricts what a practitioner may say about these and about nothing else on your site.

Practitioner

A person, never a firm. §10.2(a)(5) sends you to §10.3: attorneys, CPAs, enrolled agents, enrolled actuaries. Sanctions land on the individual, and under §10.50(c) on the firm too.

Misleading or deceptive

Sits in the same sentence as false and fraudulent, and does more work than either. The standard a true sentence fails when the impression is wrong.

Willfully

§10.52 makes a §10.30 breach sanctionable when willful. It makes §10.37 sanctionable on recklessness or gross incompetence, a much lower bar, and that is the section your articles sit in.

The part almost nobody explains

§10.37, and the footer everyone still uses

One paragraph of Circular 230 appears on more tax emails than any other, and has not been required for over a decade. The section that replaced it is the one to read.

The scope line§10.37 applies to “written advice (including by means of electronic communication) concerning one or more Federal tax matters”. Two things are named as not written advice: government submissions on general policy, and continuing education for practitioners. Source 3.

What people think it says

Put the Circular 230 notice at the bottom and you are covered.

The notice answered a regime on tax opinions that T.D. 9668 removed in June 2014. §10.35 today is two sentences about competence, and nothing in the current text asks for a notice. Our own pack declines to insert one.

What it actually says

Six requirements about how the advice was formed, and none at all about what you append to it.

The test is your process, against what the section calls a reasonable practitioner standard, weighing the scope of the engagement and the specificity of the advice. On a published article the scope is wide and the reader unknown, which cuts against you.

The six requirements at §10.37(a)(2), and what each asks of a published article

Reasonable assumptionsIncluding about future events. A piece on a bill that has not passed carries one

All the relevant factsEverything you know or should know. An article knows nothing about its reader

Reasonable efforts to find themThe research step, and the date on the authority you relied on

No unreasonable relianceNever lean on a representation you know to be incomplete

Law related to factsWhat separates advice from a summary. Name the section, then apply it

Audit odds are not a factorThe one that changes what you may write: never weigh the odds of an audit

Whether a general-audience article is written advice at all is the open question, and the text does not settle it. §10.37 names two exclusions, neither an article written for taxpayers. A post that cites a section, works an example and tells the reader what to do is a long way from a newsletter blurb, and the distance is the risk.

Fees

Publish a price and you have made a promise

Circular 230 is more permissive about fees than most firms assume, and stricter about what happens next. You may put prices on your website, in four named shapes. Then a clock starts. Drag the days.

FeesWhat you may publish is at §10.30(b)(1), the costs sentence at (b)(1)(ii), the 30-day hold at (b)(2). Contingent fees are a separate section, §10.27. Sources 1 and 5.

The clock your price page starts

Drag the days

Days since you last published the schedule Day 0

Held

Say whether clients pay costs on top (b)(1)(ii) Required
Charge no more than the published rate (b)(2) Required
Keep a copy of the communication (c) 36 months

Published today. The rate binds you for the next 30 calendar days, and binds you again from the day you last edit the page.

The 30 days are a floor, not a ceiling. The text says “at least 30 calendar days”, and nothing restarts the clock except publishing the schedule again. Source 1.

The one fee shape the rule will not let you publish is the one clients keep asking for. §10.27 bars a contingent fee for any matter before the IRS, with named exceptions for an examination or challenge, for a refund claim about statutory interest or penalties, and for judicial proceedings. The definition is wide: a percentage of the refund, a percentage of the taxes saved, or anything that “otherwise depends on the specific result attained”.

“You pay only if we get you a bigger refund” is the sentence. And note that “matter before the Internal Revenue Service” is wider in §10.27 than the trigger in §10.30: it expressly takes in tax planning and advice, so the bar reaches advisory work that never involves a form. Worth knowing before you price one on a share of the saving.

Records

Thirty-six months, counted from the last time it was used

A sentence buried in the fee paragraph does what no other part of §10.30 does: it tells you to keep things. It has aged into a question about your website that the text does not answer.

Retention§10.30(c) requires a copy of “direct mail and e-commerce communications”, with a list or description of the recipients, kept “for a period of at least 36 months from the date of the last transmission or use”. Source 1.

The retention clock on one page

31 CFR §10.30(c)

Still on your site Taken down. The clock is running. Still in use. The clock has not started.

Start: the date it was last transmitted or used +36 months

Thirty-six months from last use. If it went out as a campaign the copy has to come with a list of who received it, and an archive of the page alone does not satisfy that half.

A page still on your site is arguably still in use, so the start date keeps moving and the 36 months have not begun. An article from 2021 that was never taken down has a clock starting whenever you retire it.

The rule names direct mail and e-commerce communications and defines neither. A public article with no recipient list does not fit, and nothing in the text resolves it. Source 1.

The ambiguity has a cheap answer. A dated copy of every version of every page is the only way to show what a page said in the year a return was filed on it. A content system that edits in place has already decided that for you.

One section about our software, then back to the rule

What Verand checks of this rule, and what it does not

Everything above stands whether or not you buy anything. This is how much of it software can see in a draft. The right-hand column is longer, and printing it is the point.

What it checks

Blocks a contingent fee tied to a refund. A draft offering to be paid only if it wins a bigger refund cannot publish, citing §10.27 alongside the AICPA Code.
Blocks implied influence over the IRS. “Former IRS insider”, “we know someone at the IRS”, “inside track”. Saying a colleague is a former IRS employee is an exception: a fact, not a promise.
Flags superlatives for review. “#1 CPA”, “best tax firm”. A warning rather than a block, released by a named ranking source.
Runs a CPA conduct check on every draft for a guaranteed refund, audit or tax outcome, an absolute independence claim, and solicitation aimed at another firm's clients.
Blocks six more claim types from the baseline underneath: guaranteed results, guaranteed returns, cannot-lose, get-rich-quick, risk-free, zero-risk. The last two release only on a written, logged reason.
Requires the disclaimer block and four cited sources, two of them primary.

What it does not

It does not decide whether your page is an Internal Revenue Service matter. That turns on subject and purpose. Every draft is checked as though it were.
It does not apply §10.37. Whether advice rests on reasonable assumptions and relates law to facts is a judgement about how you worked, and the work is not in the prose.
It does not check the designation on the byline. Whether an author holds the credential printed beside their name needs a record of who they are. Deferred, and documented as deferred.
It does not keep your records, and has no idea when you last published a fee schedule.
It does not publish. Nothing reaches your site without a person at your firm approving it, and no setting changes that.

Validated against Treasury's Circular 230 and the AICPA Code of Professional Conduct. AI-researched and operator-reviewed. Your counsel confirms applicability. Not legal advice. How we label review →

Verand for CPA firms Can CPAs use AI for marketing content? →

Questions

The ones that come up

About the rule, not our software. Each points at the section it comes from.

Do I still need the Circular 230 notice at the bottom of my emails?

No, and you have not since June 2014. T.D. 9668 removed the opinion regime the notice answered and rewrote §10.35 as two sentences about competence. Firms keep it out of habit, and because a template somewhere still carries it. It is doing nothing.

Can I advertise a maximum refund guarantee?

No. §10.30(a)(1) forbids a misleading or deceptive claim as readily as a false one, and a guarantee of an outcome you do not control is both. It is also a decent test of whether your marketing passes anyone who has read the rule, being near the first phrase a general-purpose writing tool reaches for.

I worked at the IRS. Can I say so?

Saying what you did and when is a fact about your history. What §10.51(a)(5) forbids is “intimating that the practitioner is able improperly to obtain special consideration or action” from the agency. The line runs between a résumé and a promise.

Does Circular 230 reach my state tax content?

Not directly. Part 10 governs practice before the Internal Revenue Service, so a post about your state's pass-through entity election sits outside it. Your state board of accountancy does not, and several carry advertising rules stricter than anything in §10.30.

Does it matter that a draft was written with AI?

Not to the rule. §10.30 reaches a practitioner who uses or participates in the use of a communication, whatever produced it, and §10.37 grades how the advice was formed rather than who typed it. What changes is where the effort goes. §10.36 asks whether adequate procedures exist, and “we read everything before it goes out” is a procedure only once it is written down and followed.

Sources

Where every line came from

Primary sources only. Quoted phrases are the regulation's own words; everything else is our rendering.

Paragraph references are to 31 CFR Part 10. Every quotation was read on Cornell and corroborated word for word against the 2024 CFR on govinfo.gov. Last checked September 17, 2026. Not legal advice.

Elsewhere in this section

The next questions this one raises

Hub

Verand for CPA firms

What the software does, and refuses to do.

/cpas Explainer

AICPA advertising rules for a CPA firm

The Code's side. A professional body, not Treasury.

/aicpa-advertising-rules Explainer

What counts as advertising for CPAs

The scope test, run over what a firm actually publishes.

/what-counts-as-advertising Question

Can CPAs use AI for marketing content?

Permission, responsibility, and what a person still does.

/using-ai-to-write-content Checklist

CPA firm blog disclaimer requirements

The block the pack requires, word for word.

/disclaimer-requirements Guide

Local SEO for CPA firms

Your office, your profile, and the rules that reach both.

/local-seo Trust

How we label compliance review

Operator-reviewed, not attorney-verified, and why we print it.

/compliance-standards

Reading the rule is an afternoon. Holding every page to it is the season.

Verand drafts in your firm's voice, with your firm's facts, and runs the checks above before anything reaches a reviewer. A CPA at your firm still presses publish.

Start for Free Verand for CPA firms →

Packs are AI-researched and operator-reviewed against the governing body's published rules. Not attorney-verified. Not legal advice.