  One of the main challenges of current tidal disruption events (TDEs) studies
is that emission arising from AGN activity may potentially mimic the expected
X-ray emission of a TDE. Here we compare the X-ray properties of TDEs and AGN
to determine a set of characteristics which would allow us to discriminate
between flares arising from these two objects. We find that at peak, TDEs are
brighter than AGN found at similar redshifts. However, compared to preflare
upperlimits, highly variable AGN can produce flares of a similar order of
magnitude as those seen from X-ray TDEs. Nevertheless, TDEs decay significantly
more monotonically, and their emission exhibits little variation in spectral
hardness as a function of time. We also find that X-ray TDEs are less absorbed,
and their emission is much softer than the emission detected from AGN found at
similar redshifts. We derive the X-ray luminosity function (LF) for X-ray TDEs
using the events from Auchettl et al. (2017). Interestingly, our X-ray LF
matches closely the theoretically derived LF by Milosavljevi\'c et al. (2006).
which assumes a higher TDE rate currently estimated from observations. Using
our results and the results of Stone & Metzger (2016), we estimate a TDE rate
of $(0.7-4.7)\times10^{-4}$ yr$^{-1}$ per galaxy, higher than current
observational estimates. We find that TDEs can contribute significantly to the
LF of AGN for $z\lesssim0.4$, while there is no evidence that TDEs influence
the growth of $10^{6-7}M_{\odot}$ BHs. However, BHs $<10^{6}M_{\odot}$ can grow
from TDEs arising from super-Eddington accretion without contributing
significantly to the observed AGN LF at $z=0$.
