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No, no; I'm not tryin' to proselytize you or hand out Witness phamplets; I saw a Help Wanted KFC sign yesterday which may appeal to those of us who are sick/tired/fed up (I'm in there somewhere) translating taxes for the terminally obtuse. It offers $15-20 an hour (possible manager training for those who can tell the difference between Original and Extra Crispy), 401-K, full health insurance + dental & vision, two weeks paid vacation, and fast-tracking for the skilled employee (if only I'd played basketball instead of majoring in business; accurate burger-flipping is probably a plus). Yes, yes, it's cheap pay, but think of the enticing attraction - soothing that wrung-out, worn-out brain of yours with a desperately needed island-class rest. The only thing you must really know is not PPP ins-and-outs, back-door Roths, or tracking CTC advances, but merely this (50% errors are tolerated): "Did that guy say with cheese or without?"

Hahahaha, hey, everybody! All is well! Best wishes to everybody finishing up. Remember, they need you more than you need them.

Just venting. Got off the phone after an *hour* talking with (at?) a client. Why do people spend the first fifteen minutes of a call meandering their way from one half-formed thought to the next? And the next forty-five minutes asking the same questions a dozen times but never listening to your answer? Plus drag in all manner of unrelated, stupid, items into the middle of it all, for extra self-confusion? I had a cup of tea and a piece of chocolate, and put on some soothing classical instrumental music, so I am slowly calming down. But I really, really, really wanted to dope-slap this woman all the way down to Rita's and leave her there for hugs. I'll calm down the rest of the way before I bill for the time because right now I'm thinking that $1,000 for the torture of the past hour is too low a price.

Got three emails today from one I hoped was gone. First one "No wonder I put this off. I didn't make anything! Oh, I did get a $17,000 PPP loan that was forgiven..." Second one: "Here are ten screenshots of my closing documents where I bought a house." Third one: Also, I think I get to claim Buffy for 2020. Yeah, no.

I have a client that calls all year but she always adds $100 to my invoice because she knows she can be a pest. But this year or the last month is different, her college son has been day trading, big time and early on she has been telling me the kid is awesome, making tens of thousands of dollars. First thing I told her was to remind him to watch his wash sales. Didn’t listen and after 176M of sales and over 2M in wash sales he has 326K in gains. But only 50K in the account. She wants to strangle the kid and worst part she’s trying to hide it from the father. Can’t wait to see how this turns out on 10/15.

I've been telling people November. So far only one has raised a fuss. She sent me 30 pages for her bank statements to find her EIP1 and EIP2, not sending me any 2021 pages where EIP2 might be. And, her 1099-B is dozens of pages long; I hate to use summaries (prefer importing) but it'll be summaries if October. Is your back 40 getting crowded? I own a few acres in IL, so I could start my own land of former clients. Does it help increase the yield of corn and soy beans?

I remember years ago when my wife was a Girl Scout Leader ( we had 3 daughters ), she was calling a girl's mother to ask her to help with something. All of a sudden right in the middle of the phone call, the mother yells , "Dog Fight" and hangs up!

Oh no, she's not retired. She's working the back field since hugging all those late filers! #ritahugs

That's great! The great-er news is that I sold my business and finally grew up to be an employee! So thankful to have the responsibility off my back, and excited to help the next one build her business. I'll work for a few more years, just because.

Down south, we say, "Hold my beer and watch THIS $h**!" I'm straight up stealing "DOG FIGHT" when I need to get off the phone! LOL

So I am glad that you had the soothing remedies of chocolate, tea and music but, yeah, sometimes that isn't enough. Those adventures haven't happened to me often but they do try one's patience. When that happens, I do remember that I am billing time. One client this past spring was shocked! shocked! at my invoice but I pointed out the umpteen calls he made about so many things many of which he could have researched himself. This is a higher 6 figure IT person, too. I'm not sure he will be returning - don't care. My current thorn is waiting for the neurosurgeon (yes, that one) to deign to reply to my emails, calls or even the return to review in Verifyle. I can't make the horse drink the water. Oh well, maybe she won't come back either so less work for next season and inching ever closer to calling it in.

I want to be a barista. I make excellent espresso drinks if I do say so myself. If any of you pass through KS, let me know ... I'll deliver carside ;)!

For the purpose of due diligence by a purchaser of a tax practice, under sec 7216(n) the seller is allowed to disclose names, addresses, emails, phone numbers, the tax form and entity classification of the clients. You may find the following blog helpful in this regard: https://www.johnrdundon.com/irc-7216-disclosures-issues-to-consider-when-selling-your-practice-start-with-a-tight-nda/

I vote for hide under our desks now.

Extending the use of your most-wonderful appellation from earlier, we are now in Q7 of 2020, almost to Q8. Can we all go hide under our desks now, and stay there till this is all over? Please?

Has ATX announced this year's official e-file shutdown date?¿ My quick search = no info. I want to use my time wisely. After 47+ yrs in "Our profession" ~ I'm ready to 98% retire. I'll likely hit 50yrs. before being concerned with only my taxes. Yes, I was @ my desk with a Pencil & ten key calculator Before "Earned Income Credit" existed. Oh, the stories all of us could tell.

She's still his step-daughter. The only relationship that ends at divorce is between the spouses. You're even still related to your in-laws. ( I had a student get depressed when I told a class that fact !)

Well, since my last tax return's efile was acknowledged on the 6th, I can let it rip.

No, it expires at death. Case law has allowed surviving spouse a portion of NOL if they actively participated in the business. I don't know if its required but would fie regardless so it is on IRS records.

I started one last night that'd been angry that it wasn't completed yet. She's SE and artistic. But she usually gives me a stack of 1099s and a messy spreadsheet of expenses. This year, one 1099 for $500 and nothing else, not even car tax or a Goodwill receipt. I wrote her before I slept with a long list of her usual clients and expense categories from last year, and told her today or I prepare in November. She wrote this morning that she signed our engagement letter, but she didn't send it to me. Nothing else. She will rant for a month when I can't complete her returns. I'll brace myself. By the way, she sent me the one above (that one I charge a LOT). So, I'll probably lose both of them after spending time on both of them -- but next year will be more pleasant.

Honey chile, some of us have been unbalanced from the start!

I have some for her to plant !!

Put $1 in Interest Income.

I have had at least one client who swears she did not get the second stimulus payment, and actually looked at the bank accounts to check, but got the letter from the IRS saying that she did. When we checked, they had issued the payment as a debit card. Once they have done that, the only recourse is to contact the "bank" that actually issues the debit cards for the IRS. She did that, and they reissued the card, but after she activated the card, it showed a zero balance. And apparently it is impossible to talk to an actual person to get anything cleared up. This is a huge waste of my time holding their hand through all of this.

Allocate the selling price and the expenses of sale to each type of property sold. You will have separate sale entries for the land, the building and its improvements, and any 1245 assets that were on the fixed asset schedule. If I have lots of improvements over years, or have lots of 1245 assets listed, once I have the SP and expense of sale allocation figures, then I do group/bulk sale for each of those types.

I 'll throw an example where it's not deductible - Donation of your Airline Miles to a charity - no deduction.

When in doubt, I tend strongly to file.

I think (although could be wrong) that you can continue to use the same EIN but you have to file an 8822-B indicating a change in the responsible party if the shareholder who was the responsible party is no longer involved for whatever reason.

I do live payroll processing, so I have to have a laser printer to print the MICR code on my client's checks. In addition, if you need to print any bar codes or qr codes, many inkjet printers are not precise enough.

If it helps, I had one client that saved all the paperwork including one EIP that came on plastic. It seems very clear to me that it was from the U.S. government and what it was for. From some of what I blacked out though, I believe this client received this in June 2020, so maybe there was more awareness that payments were being made on plastic by then whereas recipients earlier on may not have realized that.

@Eric - whatever happened to our wonderful little emoji of banging a head against a brick wall? That would be the *perfect* response to this post!

I would not send back. I would tell the client that IRS also makes mistakes, and Congress handed them an impossible task with the restrictions and exceptions on the stimulus payments. And it may take IRS months or even years to sort this all out. So they should be prepared to repay the “excess” payment, with interest, at some unknown point in the future. if that happens, they have been forewarned. If it doesn’t happen, then they won’t remember.

The income was paid after death, so it is income in respect of a decedent. Report it on the 1040 to satisfy the computer matching, then back it out with the notation "IRD to be reported by EIN xxxxx." Put the estate on a fiscal year, beginning on the date of death and ending Nov 30 2021. You can use probate and legal fees as well as your fee as expenses, maybe taxes on the land while it is in the estate. If everything is sorted out by then, the estate can close and the remaining income will pass through to the beneficiaries, who are likely to be in a lower tax bracket than the estate. You can file the 1041 before Nov 30 using a short year if everything is settled earlier.

https://www.vallartaeats.com/history-of-the-taco/

Due to several more current serious exploits, Chrome has released an unscheduled update. Chrome is up to date Version 94.0.4606.71 (Official Build) (64-bit)

My high school football coach was a survivor of the Bataan Death March. Ironically, his name was Max Beam. Coach Beam didn’t have any patience with slackers, and he always said we were too soft & had no idea what hardship was. Wonder what he’d say about today’s generation?

Yep, I use it from time to time; because this year more than ever, I want them all e-filed. Always file to start the SOL running.

The last two tax seasons have thrown me very off balance!

Old accountants never retire. They just become unbalanced.

Of course it will. Just like licensing gets bad drivers off the road and has eliminated corrupt builders. It's amazing anyone opposes this.

I just got through to the PPL in about 3 minutes. Trick is to call between 5pm & 7pm. Most practitioners go home at 5. Now I’m on Pacific Time, so maybe this doesn’t work in the East, but I’m rarely on hold more than a half hour. oh and don’t call on Monday.

I have clients that like to pay me via PayPal and Venmo plus credit cards I process via Intuit. I would receive Forms 1099-K from all three of those. The Intuit payments land in my biz checking account, and I move all the Venmo and most of the PayPal to my biz checking account. Under Biden, my biz checking account will issue me Form 1099-whatever on those transfers. The same income will get reported twice. My disbursements from PayPal and from my biz CC and from my biz checking account will NOT be reported twice. My net profit will look waaay too high! I can't imagine the time it will take to argue my own situation with the IRS, let alone argue for all my clients!

I remember reading George Orwell's book "1984" in Jr High in the 70's and thinking this can never happen in the United States. Guess I was wrong.

No basis - no deduction. Although an entirely different situation, I believe the net metering ends up in the same boat. Case law has held that most consumer "points", rewards etc.... are not taxable income, therefore there is no basis to deduct. In the case of the net metering, the taxpayer also does not recognize income by producing more energy than he/she produces but receives a credit instead. It sounds like the only options are: use it, lose it, or give it away. If the taxpayer had an option to receive cash, the excess electricity produced could generate taxable income and a 1099. In that case the taxpayer would have a basis to deduct. So it appears to me without a basis there is no deduction.

Telling clients to keep calling, or to be patient, depending on the urgency of their issue with the IRS. That I will work on it after 15 October. Very frustrated with the client calls/emails/texts during these last 3 or so months when I'm trying to prepare returns before 15 October. Very time-consuming at my busiest time of year! The IRS is broken. Why does the buck stop in my lap?!

Per 1.152-2(d), "The relationship of affinity once existing will not terminate by divorce or the death of a spouse." That was applied to Duncan in TC 2014-56 in allowing taxpayer to claim step-children as qualifying children.

My own NYS return is one of two that's been hanging for three days. Initially, I received error the SSN didn't match IRS. Well. I know my own SSN and IRS accepted so bite me. Called my software company who told me to re-submit both which I did. I still have three I'm trying to finish and would really like them done this weekend just in case there's a delay. My anxiety rises dramatically when I refresh and see REJECTED in red. Said it before and I'll say it again. Every single day makes me more determined to find a way to NOT do this anymore. I'm not trying to pat myself on the back but I'm one of the good ones. I get documentation. I ask questions. I fire people trying to lie. But they're pushing me out with all this insanity.

Prior to EIP3, you could go to irs.gov and look up your EIPs. Years back you could also look up special credits with an IRS tool. Wishful thinking here, but it would be great if IRS would make both payment amounts available online.

Is there any way to round or truncate basis on something so that $1 of income is carried to the front of the return? I think that would allow you to e-file without making a tremendous difference in carry forwards.

No one seems to have noticed that I specified taxPAYERS, not pros, being treated as suspects and not with respect. Yes, the IRS treats pros with respect - at this time. If given further, and largely unconstrained, power over our professional lives and careers, and we then take a stance disagreeing with them - how long will it last? Snowballs and hell, anyone?