Many enrolled agents have years of experience as former employees of the IRS or have successfully passed a rigorous examination. Many of these same persons are also CPAs and are licensed or experienced in other fields—and they are the only persons examined and licensed by the IRS.

As one who practiced in this field for more than 40 years, I feel this communication will serve to advise you of their availability to persons in need of tax advice and assistance.

Paul E. Morgan, Indianapolis

Editor’s note: This article strongly encourages readers to seek professional help, and mentions enrolled agents (page 35) as one of three categories of professionals authorized to represent taxpayers. While our article does not go into explicit detail about the qualifications of enrolled agents, it does offer them as one option.

Dear Editor:
I enjoyed your article "The Million-Dollar Question" (News & Scoreboards, March 2007) and feel that professionals in the financial planning industry need to take greater responsibility in educating our youth about fiscal responsibility. I deal with many successful adults who have only a basic understanding of financial planning and fiscal responsibility. This fact has frustrated me over the last 15 years, because I see the same problems over and over.

One day I was having a conversation with a high school student and realized the reason adults do not have a clear picture of what a proper financial plan entails or looks like is because there is no formal education to teach them while they are students. I find this ironic—we prepare our children with a range of classes, but the one area where they will need some form of knowledge when they enter the workforce is financial responsibility.

With this in mind, I did some research and found a course through the National Endowment for Financial Education. I went to the Ross School, a private school in East Hampton, N.Y., and offered to teach the 10-hour course to its senior class. The director of the school, Mark Frankel, agreed. To make sure the students paid attention, I offered a $1,000 scholarship through my firm for the student who wrote the best paper using the information taught in the course. The papers I received were impressive—and my students will be ahead of the game when the time comes to put their own plans to work.

Marc Lowlicht, New York

Dear Editor:
In the Spectrem Index portion of News & Scoreboards, you differentiate the "affluent" from the "millionaires" by their amount of investable assets. At first I thought that meant liquid versus illiquid assets, but then I remembered your articles about investing in bars of gold or paintings and became uncertain. Would the value of a business or real estate property count? Where does the index draw the line to differentiate investable assets from net worth?

Heather Boudreau, Portland, Ore.

Spectrem replies: For the index, "affluent" refers to those with $500,000 or more of investable assets. These are assets that are more liquid and include such things as stocks, bonds and deposits, but do not include retirement plans and real estate. The millionaire group takes a more broad definition and refers to those with more than $1 million in financial assets, which includes bank accounts, retirement plans and investments such as stocks, bonds and mutual funds; it still would not include real estate.