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One from bygone years (paper-file days) still gives me a grin when I think of it. No hard feelings since (1) she was a very nice, pretty lady (2) it was unknowingly unintentional. She had a big wad of LBT (little bitta this-little bitta that) papers and needed a complex 1040X. Hubby figured a refund was due. She: "He said we need it done right away." Me: "Well, Mrs. X; I'm afraid this is going to take quite a good long while." She: "Oh, that's okay! I can come back after lunch." _____________________________________________ Such is life! .......................................... Pop

And to all your FDNY family. Remembering the loss of so many on 9/11.

Your client is not the spouse's lawyer, your client is the corporation that you prepare the tax return for. If the lawyer is alleging that his client is not an officer of the corporation, then she is not entitled to provide authorization for you to talk to a lawyer outside of the corp, nor divulge anything about the corp to him. Thank him for informing you that his client has committed tax fraud by knowingly signing a tax return that has a material misstatement made by her, and that you will be informing the IRS of his communication to you...(maybe that is going a little too far to call the IRS on her - your call). Tell him to get a subpoena if he wants to depose you. Tom Longview, TX

But it's embarrassing to fall asleep in a live classroom! And, I have to shower and put on real clothes with shoes. And, pretend that I'm not crabby. And, it's always too hot or too cold. And, the highlighter I take runs out after two pages...

My favorite bad transcription of a voice message I received came from a woman with a Chinese accent, who tried to leave the message, "Meet at 4 o'clock." but it transcribed as "Need more [rhymes with rock and is name for a rooster].

NATP. Speaker Jaye Tritz. Rita is correct. From the 1099 instructions. Form 1099-K. Payments made with a credit card or payment card and certain other types of payments, including third-party network transactions, must be reported on Form 1099-K by the payment settlement entity under section 6050W and are not subject to reporting on Form 1099-MISC. See the separate Instructions for Form 1099-K. Tom Longview, TX

Well, I heard that, too, and started looking to confirm your suspicions that presenter is wrong. Um. No, looks like the reporting is only on the 1099-K by the payment processor: Instructions for Forms 1099-MISC and 1099-NEC (Rev. January 2022) (irs.gov)

Look for specialists in representing the male spouse. There is a difference between sharks for the dad and for the mom.

I still use QB 2003 desktop on my Win10 computer. I have the install key so every time I change computers I can re-install without QB knowing about it. I turn off the internet when I install, turn off automatic updates within QB, and then turn the internet back on. Never checks for updates, never changes anything about how it works. I don't use it for payroll, just my own bookkeeping. No hiccups. Never an issue. Intuit can bite me, I am not paying for a new version every year that does nothing more for me. Tom Longview, TX

"Paychex announced Paychex Voice Assist, a new voice feature for its Paychex Flex SaaS solution that allows for hands-free functionality for payroll processing. Working through any Google Assistant-compatible device — whether smart phone, smart watch, smart speaker or smart TV — Paychex Voice Assist uses the sound of a verified user's voice to do things like starting a pay period or acting on one already in progress, applying standard pay, making adjustments, reviewing totals, and submitting payroll for processing. Admins can also receive real-time notifications with payroll data insights, review and adjust hours and pay rates, and submit checks for payday." I can't stretch my braIn enough to imagine doing payroll "hands free" How have I survived 46 years of banging on a ten key, a typewriter, a calculator and a keyboard.

I hate to say this, but if your son has friends who got really taken to the cleaners I would try to find out who represented their spouse.

Client: "Anything you can do about these penalties?" You: "Sure, I can show you how they're calculated."

@Terry D EA You are trying to change the circumstances to enable the client to continue behaviors that they should not be continuing. It is the behavior of the client that needs to change, and their unwillingness to do so results in penalties and interest. It is the behavior that is causing the issue, not the circumstances. Good choice to leave it alone. It would have made a more complicated situation that you would be blamed for when their behavior continued to cause penalties and interest. Some clients are just the way they are and our best efforts to help save them from themselves are futile. Tom Longview, TX

And this underscores how important it is to read the actual trust documents, because what we are told is often only loosely related to the truth. (With new clients, this also makes them scramble to *find* the trust docs, which have usually been semi-lost for years.)

None of this goes in the wife's estate because she did not own the assets, the trust did. This is an irrevocable trust that gives her the right to income (I think, not clear from the info given) and a limited amount of principal. Upon her death, the assets owned by the trust go the beneficiaries and the trust dissolves. The 1041 will have three beneficiaries--the wife's share of income received before death and the two children's share of income each received after her death. If the assets have been distributed, you can put the property distributions on the 1041 at the trust's basis to zero it out. No income there--the 1041 is an INCOME tax return. Are you actually filing a 706? The wife would have to have $12 million in assets to necessitate one.

My opinion would be that you sign as the successor trustee. You are not her POA any longer because of her death, she can't currently sign for the same reason so even if you were still POA you can't do something that she would not be able to do, and you can't back date them to a date when she was still alive and you were still her POA. But that is just my opinion and I am not a lawyer.

Personally, as a software author since the 80's, I write at length on software updates, licensing, etc. But I try not to as no one wants to hear it. So... Downloaded from torrent or other grey sources? Nope. So easy for a insurer to use to leave you out of pocket for any sort of defense/settlement. So easy for a judge.jury to find you negligent. There is plenty of current free software to use if cost is an issue, or free is the desire. Likely not a good idea to post, in a public forum such as this, about using software which (probably) has not had any security updates in years, was downloaded from a grey source, or (hopefully not the case) is not properly licensed.

I prefer in person because then I get to leave my house!

I kind of remember a story about a CPA firm that sent a voice to text message to a accounting department "Send the documents to the Feds" and it was transcribed as "Sent the documents to shreds", I think they are no longer in business.

If the main address that the partnership uses on the front of form 1065 has changed, use form 8822-B. If the main address of the partnership did not change and this is an address change only on the form 8825, I'd just change it there on future filings and not worry about the past because it's actually the same property and location.

You could have said, "After lunch this same day next month will be fine", just to keep it interesting.

Here's the link to the article in the Journal of Accountancy on Sept 23, 2022. The 7th paragraph is quite clear. (I counted singe sentences standing alone as a paragraph). The source is certainly reliable, although nobody else I've read has mentioned this - most just imply that the return MUST be filed by Sept 30, 2022. I'd like to hear your thoughts, or any one else's, on whether there is any other way to interpret this. If reliable, it will significantly alter my work schedule this week (for the better). https://www.journalofaccountancy.com/news/2022/sep/penalty-relief-deadline-fast-approaches-2019-2020-tax-returns.html Here's the operative paragraph: "Although the time for the full penalty relief is running out for businesses and individuals that have not yet filed their 2019 or 2020 returns, those that miss the deadline but file during the first few months after the Sept. 30 cutoff will still qualify for partial penalty relief. For eligible returns filed after the cutoff date, penalties will start accruing on Oct. 1 instead of the return's original due date. The IRS noted in the news release that the late-filing penalty accrues based on each month or part of a month that a return is late, so filing sooner will limit any charges that apply."

Years ago I had a S Corp with a September 30th year end, which requires you to make a tax payment so that your client can't use the year end change to defer payment of their taxes. The Tax Advisor has a very good explanation: https://www.thetaxadviser.com/issues/2009/apr/scorporationtaxyearrules.html

Also note that if you want to be persnickety, many dividends (and cap gain dists) are weighted towards end-of-year payments, so to be correct you can't just apportion. You actually have to look at the dividends paid with each monthly or (usually) quarterly or semi-annual payment. Only payments before DOD are taxed on the final 1040; the rest go on the 1041. Yes, the only thing to do is to charge a lot for these returns. They are pains-taking.

Sounds like the trust should have been divided into two upon wife's death, one share for each child. It clearly states upon wife's death it all goes to the two kids. Her estate should get no income after her death (may have short-year beneficiaries there).

Yes. The repayment forgiveness was for 2020 only. But there is not a cliff at 400% of FPL where everything has to be repaid. Those over 400% continue to qualify for PTC thru 2025 so only excess has to be repaid.

"The Comedy Store filed a lawsuit against its accounting firm, alleging that it missed out on receiving at least $8.5 million in COVID-19 relief funds due to “misrepresentations, gross negligence and misconduct.” According to the suit filed Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, accountants Moss Adams, based in Seattle with offices in Los Angeles, misrepresented its “expertise and knowledge about” the federal COVID-related relief program and failed to inform the Comedy Store that the application to apply for the government grants was closing in August 2022." Moss Adams is a good sized West coast regional CPA Firm. I handled the PPP Loan applications and the forgiveness applications for 5 different small business clients. At our size we tend not to think about the risk of handling things like this

Gets your hands on a older version of QB, I have client that is still using 2010 version.

Based on my experience with Google Assistant voice commands, this could be disastrous.

Because this is to acquire the property, I would treat this as an addition to the cost of that property.

In addition to above, going back to your original facts, the client will offset the LTCG by the STCL and will have a net gain on schedule D of $23K. There is one other place that the ordering rules and these offsets can affect the tax and is taken into consideration, and that is the tax calculation if using the cap gain tax worksheet to Sch D, and that is also dependent on other items of income on the client's return. In your client's case, that net gain should produce the cap gain tax worksheet and may possibly yield a lower tax. If you are unsure how this all works, perhaps it is best for you to run a projection through your software and see the flow of these individual components on Sch D and that tax worksheet.

I had the opportunity to work with Moss Adams when I was a Corporate Controller early in my career. I was not impressed. Overpriced and un-responsive are the first two words that come to my mind when I think about them. After I left, the Moss Adams CPA assigned to our account took over my position. He called me a week after I left and asked how to pay the corporate PR taxes online. The company was sued for wage and hour violations 5 years after I left. Big verdict. Your article does not surprise me. Tom Longview, TX

I never had a chance to use this, but I always wanted to tell someone with whom I did not want to meet that I could see them "next Odin's Day but one."

I thought it was that way for several years since the 1099-k's came into play. Otherwise it would be reported twice

It’s amazing how quickly they catch up when the shredders are properly functioning.

Take a look at IRC Sect 6103. For joint returns, both spouses are entitled to copies of the joint individual tax return. For the partnership, Section 61403(e)(1)(C) states copies can be provided to: in the case of the return of a partnership, any person who was a member of such partnership during any part of the period covered by the return; There is a later section that states the requesting partner cannot get the parts of the 1065 that relate to the other partners, e.g., K-1s. If their info is listed within the body of the 1065, white it out before copying. So you can provide either or both with copies of their 1040 and 1065.

I would say that each is entitled to a copy of the individual returns for any year that was filed MFJ because each was a party to the return. I'd mask the SSNs just so that they can't point to the other and say that personal information was disclosed improperly even though they probably each already have that for the other. If you aren't giving backup supporting documents, I think it would be ok to print detailed schedules that the program generates. For the partnership, since the son's is a minority interest, you may feel that he can't have a copy of the complete return and only should receive the K-1s and other information pertaining to his capital investment (add'l contribs, distributions, payouts, etc) if that isn't specifically addressed in the partnership agreement (if there is one), but if he is a general partner I believe he still has the right to receive the entire return under code sec 6103 without including the DILs K-1s or anything pertaining to her. See the article below that has a good summary of the issue and has references to the code: https://www.taxlawforchb.com/2018/03/the-closely-held-business-the-minority-owner-accessing-information-from-the-entitys-tax-return/ I'm interested to hear others' opinions on this as well.

I have been that duckling far too many times!

I don't think the support part is an issue. The rules state that the dependent cannot provide more than half of their own support. SSI is not considered provided by the dependent. Welfare (ie medicaid) is not support provided by the dependent. Both are provided by the government. So I think the TP is OK there as they pay all of the cost of keeping up the principal home that the child would be temporarily away from for medical care. The problem is - what is a temporary absence for medical care? I looked up a couple of cases and the IRS standard is "is it reasonable that the person will return to the parent's home after treatment"? The court seems to agree with the IRS standard, but gives wide latitude to the taxpayer and is careful not to make the IRS or the tax court the decider of the facts and circumstances that would determine when or if the dependent will return. The court seems to say that if there is a chance that the treatments at the facility could lead to the child returning to the parent's home, then the absence is temporary. My aggressive take - if the facility were to close down, the child would return to the parent's home (having no where else to go), therefore that is the child's principal place of abode. Therefore dependent. My conservative take - the child will never recover from the medical conditions and will always need care that the parents can no longer provide in their home. Therefore not a dependent. My practical take - we are only talking about a small amount of credit for the parents every year. As long as the parents are alive and together, filing status is not an issue. But what if one of them passes, the other might benefit greatly from HOH status. Thanks for letting me barf out my thought process. Feel free to criticize if it is warranted. Tom Longview, TX

I almost always feel like a roof is an improvement if you did the whole thing. Replacing a few shingles is a repair, but what you describe is a brand new roof that needs to be capitalized. Tom Longview, TX

Part of the "it has to be the responsibility of someone else" movement (replaced now uncommon sense and self responsibility). If a community property state, that may be a deflection item to look at if needed. But, being asked for something may not correlate with what you are obligated to provide based on the scope of your engagement... so don't respond to fishing expeditions. Unless it comes from someone who engaged you and is within scope, or a court, it goes in the bin (same as reference letters, lender requests, etc.). Run it by your legal representative if you need to get their E&O policy involved (for acting on their advice). I anticipate truth, but verify when needed. Even truthful people may look for recovery if your pockets are deeper.

My state has a Business Registration Search Lookup function which I use for any new business entity clients. It shows all of the relevant information. However, just because someone's name shows up here doesn't mean that all of the legal requirements have been meet. Are there Board of Director's Minutes confirming who the Officer's are? I suspect most of us assume that our clients are telling us the truth, unless something obvious smacks us in the face!

Does your state have any other filings where officers of the corp are listed? My state has an annual franchise tax for corps filed with the Sec Of State to keep the corp in good standing and that allows it to operate legally as a DE corp. That filing requires the officers be entered. Anything like that with St of NY that you could ascertain? You might try googling to see what comes up and if officers are listed. Also check LinkedIn for wife's profile to see how she lists herself

I have taken an in depth look at Dennis's accounting software several times and It will do everything that you need at a very reasonable price. The only reason I don't use it is that I need more flexibility in COA and Financial Statement Design for my larger clients. I am very pleased with his payroll software and support, which I have used for over 3 years now.

Incorrectly classified as 1099. The usual is the employee will not want to make waves, and they will handle it themselves via their personal taxes. IIRC, this has been discussed many times here with comments of how it was added as some sort of other income on the personal return. If the employee has left, they will rarely use the labor rule body to enforce proper classification. Typically, this will only happen if the former employee needs something else, such as WC or UI coverage. I have not personally run across any employer who has cleaned up their error willingly or happily. Employers do this on purpose, it is not an accident, no matter what they say after. I have heard cases where the employer warded more money to help cover the taxes, or to make the issue go away. As wonky as it is for me to say, having the default be employee is better for the worker. The CA ABC test is a bit harsh, but it is better to err for the employee. The old 20 way test is both unworkable and badly abused. The money to be made by abusing 1099's is incredible. Consider AMZ, FedEx, DoorDash, Uber, etc. I have an acquaintance who part times for DD, and they fail to realize they lose money or work for single digits per hour most of the time, if they considered what it really costs them for their vehicle miles and taxes.

A healthy understanding of the risks is a good thing. Paying for defense is no joke, but most things get settled from what I can glean. Personally, the lack of (what used to be common) sense is the eye opener. Daily, multiple times, I try to educate customers why using an old OS is bad, and explaining to those who care for data of others, why I have code to warn/block them from using an outdated OS. While I am not "into" believing an old OS cannot be used safely, the issue is there are now rules making such usage a default fail/loss/culpable action for those subject to the regulation, and in reality, for all. Same issue when not keeping paper records. Unless updated (and it could be, I have not checked), the IRS rules allowing non paper data retention are like being subject to any time probation search... which no one wants to be subject to.

I didn't initiate, encourage, or offer to help any client OBTAIN a PPP loan. I told them if they were interested, they needed to contact their bank or other lender, and I would then help them gather all the information they needed. Even passed along the names of a few lenders to clients whose bank couldn't get around to them. But I would not recommend that they get a PPP loan or be involved in initiating the process in any manner. There were a couple of them who could, and probably should, have obtained at least one PPP loan but they "didn't have time" to contact a lender. Not my problem. I even sat with a couple of them while they filled out their loan applications and/or forgiveness applications on their computer, but I never actually interacted with the lenders (other than for my own PPP loans). As Mediln stated, this was all new stuff, fraught with risk, and the goal posts kept getting moved. This was not a good place to assume risk - the downside was too great at the outset.

I would not ever come back from lunch

We used that suggestion for a family member and it worked out very well for both parents and the child.

No is correct if you only bought cryptocurrency with fiat currency. https://www.irs.gov/individuals/international-taxpayers/frequently-asked-questions-on-virtual-currency-transactions Q5. The 2020 Form 1040 asks whether at any time during 2020, I received, sold, sent, exchanged, or otherwise acquired any financial interest in any virtual currency. During 2020, I purchased virtual currency with real currency and had no other virtual currency transactions during the year. Must I answer yes to the Form 1040 question? (updated March 2, 2021) A5. No. If your only transactions involving virtual currency during 2020 were purchases of virtual currency with real currency, you are not required to answer yes to the Form 1040 question.