Leaderboard

I find that I don't gain much insight from people with whom i agree, It's the exchange with those with whom I disagree that informs me. I will miss her, but there are plenty of others on this forum to take up the slack.

I have two Brother printers I have been very happy with. Key for me is the ability to print duplex (double sided). Brother MFC-8840DN (multi-function, not made anymore) also faxes-scans-copies. Brother HL-4070CDW is a color printer but I almost never use colors for tax; those are limited to the net worth charts I do on request for some clients. The one beef I have with the color printer is that, since it is "Energy Star rated" it shuts itself down after x minutes of inactivity. So if you just need a page or two the older, slower, machine is actually faster as it is ready to go. It doesn't need to wake up, have its coffee, and check its facebook page and email, all before printing your page.

Ditto. I never got the impression that she owned a fish. Vanilla bean is obviously the superior vanilla.

I also thought Taxed was a man with garra. I liked that she was quick to reply and she was well versed on some areas.

She jabbed back quite often too, not that I have any problem with that. Apparently the only way for everyone to get along is to make sure that all of the outspoken people share the same worldview.

I'm sorry to hear this.

We have more clients than we can handle. Fortunately, a large bunch of them habitually bring their stuff in the first or second week of April. We do quick calcs and tell them how much to send in with their extensions. That gives us 150-200 clients to work on during the summer. Every year a couple of pretty big accounts don't come back, for no reason we can discern. Some existing clients get bigger though, so the workload doesn't diminish. We also lose a few of the more standard clients (1040, Sch A, B, maybe D or E). And a few die. Still, we rarely accept new clients and then only by referral from an existing good client. A number of local attorneys refer trusts and estates to us, and we accept all of them because the attorneys are our clients too. Many of these returns have their own due dates, so it doesn't usually interfere with crunch time. We also get people who need representation, and it's hard to turn them down. Are you really asking why people don't come back? Many clients we picked up over the years changed because of price or lack of responsiveness from their former preparer. If you don't answer their calls or emails promptly they'll go elsewhere. Some people just think they can do better (my friend always deducts his commuting miles/business suits/gym membership/cell phone). If you find that a lot of clients are leaving, it's time to take a hard look at your business practices. If not enough are leaving, it's time to take a hard look at your pricing.

Borrowed from a post I liked over on another forum: "The Time has come," the Tax pro said, "To talk of many things: Of Wages, Tips, and Interest, Of Donations of Rings, And why the business profits not, And whither taxes' stings." (With apologies to Lewis Carroll)

News for all of you; ATM withdrawals are NOT proof of losses or the amount gambled in a session. So if Muldoon was audited, he's got $27,000 of winnings. He might be able to argue that the casino statement is proof, but since there are usually more little wins that don't result in a W2G, the coin in & out isn't an accurate record. A diary is the only proof by regs that is accepted.

Like This That is good to know. Tom Hollister, CA

I don't think that you are ever required to use Section 179 depreciation. You are required to use bonus depreciation if the equipment qualifies unless you make an election to not take bonus depreciation for all equipment in the same class (in other words, you can't pick and choose - if you don't want to take it on one piece of 5 year property, you can't take it on any 5 year property.) Basically I am not aware of any difference in treating farm property and property used in other businesses as far as section 179 and bonus depreciation.

I also had to look it up.

Not a hijack, but right on point! I couldn't have said it better. I was brought up that if you can't say something nice, you shouldn't say anything at all. People are going to have different opinions about everything, but what was really getting annoying was when one would say it's white and the other would say it's black. Expressing ones opinion is quite different than arguing ones opinion! Just my two cents worth! Deb!

Eric has been more than accommodating in changing the forum to try to make it better and to be what the users want, and he has addressed complaints as they've come along. Some people complained openly about the hijacked posts, and one person was going to take matters into her own hands to make it stop. There were VERY FEW REPORTS made along the way, so in future if any of you have this big a problem with someone or their posts, PLEASE REPORT IT. We are not mind readers and are busy just like the rest of you, so don't sit back and say nothing until it gets so annoying that you feel the need to rant about another member by posting publicly about it. Also, if you dislike someone's point of view or his or her postings to the point that you can't overlook them and can't stand to even see those posts, USE THE BLOCK FUNCTION. It works. It takes more than one person to create an argument or keep one going, and there are others on here have added fuel to the snark fests and squabbling besides Taxed. There have also been snarky comments made to new people coming on here that innocently ask a question that are adding to the negative tone of this forum, and that needs to stop. Every time we lose a person, we lose that person's insight and advice forever. That person might not have helped YOU, but someone else may have benefitted. Now how's that for a hijack?

I just had to look up "garra". I feel smarter just being here.

Interesting article: http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/Issues/2014/Jan/20138523.htm Are courts ready to protect more accountant-client communications? Courts increasingly recognize that the need for confidential communications between accountants and clients is similar to that between attorneys and clients. BY STUART J. BASSIN, J.D. AND WILLIAM DEVINNEY, J.D. JANUARY 2014 Accountants, particularly those working in the tax arena, regularly face questions concerning whether their communications with clients are confidential and protected from disclosure. When courts have decided these questions, the result frequently turns upon the legal characterization of the relationship between accountant and client. Historically, courts have been reluctant to extend the same protection to accountants that they extend to communications between clients and their attorneys. But recent court decisions, especially those involving corporate tax reserve accrual workpapers, indicate that the judicial view of the accountant-client relationship is changing and that courts may be willing to provide greater protection for communications between accountants and their clients. BACKGROUND The confidentiality of communications between accountants and their clients arises in a variety of situations. The communications may occur when an accountant is retained to investigate sensitive matters. The communications may involve clients’ seeking accountants’ advice in planning or structuring transactions, particularly their tax consequences, and later if the accountants participate in analyzing complex tax law issues that are challenged by governmental authorities. In these and other situations, accountants and their clients exchange a large amount of confidential information and discuss the accountants’ analyses or recommendations. Both clients and accountants must be concerned whether their communications will later be protected from disclosure to future opponents and adversaries, including the IRS. Sec. 7525, which was added to the Code in 1998, generally protects tax advice an accountant provided from disclosure to the same extent that the same advice would be protected if an attorney provided it. Protection under Sec. 7525 does not extend to criminal matters. Some accountant communications with clients and their attorneys in both civil and criminal cases may be protected under the so-called Kovel doctrine (Kovel, 296 F.2d 918 (2d Cir. 1961)), in which the Second Circuit found that the attorney-client privilege can extend to an accountant when an attorney retains the accountant to provide accounting-related services. In Kovel, the court analogized the role of an accountant to that of a foreign language translator whose service is essential to enable the attorney to provide legal advice. But many communications between client and accountant fall outside these two widely recognized rules. Further, accountants and their clients historically have not fared well in protecting other types of accountant-client Are courts ready to protect more accountant-client communications? Page 1 of 5 http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/Issues/2014/Jan/20138523.htm?action=print 1/9/2014 communications from compulsory disclosure. For a short time, the Second Circuit in the Arthur Young case recognized an accountant-client privilege at least for work product prepared by accountants certifying a public company’s books and records (Arthur Young & Co., 677 F.2d 211 (2d Cir. 1982), rev’d, 465 U.S. 805 (1984)). The Supreme Court, however, stated in dicta in a 1973 case, Couch, 409 U.S. 322, that there is no accountantclient privilege and later ruled that there was no comparable accountant-client work product protection when it reversed the Second Circuit’s decision in Arthur Young. The question addressed in this article is whether there is reason to question the continuing vitality of this apparent judicial rejection of protection for accountant-client communications. THE ANTIQUATED VIEW OF THE ACCOUNTANT-CLIENT RELATIONSHIP Historically, the courts have refused to protect communications between accountant and client, even if those same communications would have been protected if they had involved an attorney, by characterizing the relationship between the accountant and client very differently from that of attorney and client. Attorneys are routinely characterized as confidential advisers and advocates, while accountants traditionally have not been viewed this way. Along these lines, the Second Circuit’s decision in Arthur Young, which was later reversed by the Supreme Court, had protected documents the government sought from a company’s accountant not because of the accountant’s role as confidential adviser, but because the appellate court believed auditors should feel free to create an honest assessment of their client’s tax returns or financial statements without fear that the IRS could then obtain and use that information against the client in an IRS audit or in litigation. Otherwise, the client would be tempted to withhold negative information from the auditor, which would in turn undermine the accuracy of reporting on the client’s tax returns or financial statements. Protecting accountant-client communications would ensure that accountants and their clients could work together in preparing thoroughly audited financials without fear that their communications would be disclosed to future adversaries. The Supreme Court rejected that perspective and adopted a different view of the auditor’s relationship with a client. According to the Court, although an auditor owes a duty to its client, the auditor “owes ultimate allegiance to the corporation’s creditors and stockholders, as well as to the investing public” (emphasis added). Further, the auditor’s role is not to protect its client’s interest, but to serve “as a disinterested analyst charged with public obligations.” The auditor’s “public watchdog” function demands that the accountant “maintain total independence from the client at all times and requires complete fidelity to the public trust” (emphasis added). According to the Court, no protection for accountant-client communications is required because no responsible corporate management team would withhold information from its auditors. Rather than risk an adverse opinion, a responsible corporate management team will disclose all relevant information, even if it is negative. Based upon this view of the accountant as unaligned with the client, the Court rejected claims for protection of communications from, or work product created by, an accountant. A MORE REALISTIC VIEW OF THE ACCOUNTANT-CLIENT RELATIONSHIP Most observers would view the Arthur Young Court’s characterization of the accountant-client relationship as reflecting a rather outdated (and perhaps naïve) notion of the modern accountant’s role. In fact, clients hire and pay accountants to provide services that advance the client’s interests. Subject to the bounds of law and professional ethics, accountants strive to advance clients’ interests in various ways, such as by suggesting structures for the client’s affairs that minimize the clients’ tax liability. No client expects that its accountants’ ultimate loyalty runs to some third party or that the accountant will voluntarily disclose client confidences. That reality conflicts with the Arthur Young Court’s characterization of the relationship between the client and the accountant as independent and potentially antagonistic. This characterization affects several recurring questions whether documents created or reviewed by accountants can be protected. For example, as Edna Selan Epstein notes in The Attorney-Client Privilege and the Work-Product Doctrine, work product protection for client documents is waived when the documents are disclosed to an adversary or potential adversary or where disclosing the document to corporate advisers substantially increases the opportunity for potential adversaries to obtain the information. In these situations, the “essential question with respect to waiver of the work-product privilege by disclosure is whether the material has been kept away from adversaries” (Nicholas v. Wyndham Int’l Inc., No. 2001/147-M/R (D.V.I. 2/27/03), slip op. at 8). Seeking to exploit this waiver rule, and relying upon Arthur Young’s view of the Are courts ready to protect more accountant-client communications? Page 2 of 5 http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/Issues/2014/Jan/20138523.htm?action=print 1/9/2014 client-accountant relationship, the government has recently contended, with little success, that disclosure of confidential or otherwise privileged information to an accountant waived otherwise valid claims of attorney-client privilege or work product protection. In more recent cases, such as Textron Inc., 577 F.3d 21 (1st Cir. 2009), the battle has been over the IRS’s attempts to obtain tax accrual workpapers from accountants and their corporate clients. These workpapers contain assessments prepared by clients, accountants, in-house lawyers, and outside counsel concerning the likelihood that a taxpayer’s reported tax liability for prior years will be increased on audit. They show computations of the accounting reserve required by FASB Interpretation No. (FIN) 48, Accounting for Uncertainty in Income Taxes, for possible future adjustments to previously filed tax returns. While the workpapers may take varying forms, they typically identify tax reporting positions that may be challenged during an audit, as well as an assessment of the likelihood that the position will be sustained on audit. These workpapers provide useful information to management about the company’s financial position and satisfy the FIN 48 requirements for evaluating potential future liabilities in certified financial statements. But preparing these workpapers also creates a huge potential hazard for the client because, in the IRS’s hands, they provide a virtual road map for conducting an audit of the company. The courts have diverged in their opinions on disputes over the IRS’s efforts to obtain the workpapers. In Textron, a sharply divided First Circuit ruled that the workpapers were not protected work product. In a 2010 case, Deloitte LLP, 610 F.3d 129, the D.C. Circuit ruled that the workpapers were protected work product and that the accountants’ role in creating the workpapers did not constitute a waiver. Most recently, in Wells Fargo & Co., Misc. No. 10-57 (JRT/JJG) (D. Minn. 6/4/13), a federal district court in Minnesota ruled last year that substantial portions (but not all) of the workpapers were protected work product and that there was no waiver. Thus, while the courts have reached differing conclusions, they have consistently rejected the government’s waiver arguments. Before reaching the waiver issues, the taxpayer must establish that the workpapers are protectable as work product, which protects material prepared “in anticipation of litigation.” The attorney work product doctrine, which arose from the Supreme Court’s decision in Hickman v. Taylor, 329 U.S. 495 (1947), protects information created in preparation for litigation. In Hickman, one party tried to force opposing counsel to turn over his notes taken during a witness interview. By creating a privilege to protect those materials, the doctrine prevents a party from preparing its case on “wits borrowed from the adversary” (329 U.S. at 516 (Jackson, J., concurring)). Of greater interest here, the courts in almost all of the cases have discussed the nature of the accountant-client relationship. For example, in contrast to the Supreme Court’s portrayal of the accountant as an impartial arbiter whose ultimate duty runs to the public, the court in Deloitte LLP (which involved the IRS’s attempt to obtain documents that had been prepared for Dow Chemical that related to ongoing tax litigation) emphatically rejected the IRS’s argument that an auditor and its client are adversaries, stating that “as an independent auditor, Deloitte cannot be Dow’s adversary.” The court determined that, although an accountant’s ethical rules (citing 2005 AICPA Code of Professional Conduct §101.08) require the accountant to withdraw representation if there is any danger of litigation between the accountant and the client, any inherent “tension between an auditor and a corporation that arises from an auditor’s need to scrutinize and investigate a corporation’s records and book-keeping practices simply is not the equivalent of an adversarial relationship contemplated by the work product doctrine” (Deloitte LLP, 610 F.3d 129, quoting Merrill Lynch & Co. v. Allegheny Energy, Inc., 229 F.R.D. 441 (S.D.N.Y. 2004)). Likewise, the court rejected the IRS’s argument that the auditor was a “conduit to an adversary” where various regulatory agencies, such as the SEC or the PCAOB, have the authority to demand confidential information from the auditor. The D.C. Circuit held that, despite the accountant’s obligations to produce documents in certain situations, the clients justifiably expected that their communications with their accountants would remain confidential. Indeed, AICPA Code of Professional Conduct Section 301.1 requires that an accountant maintain confidentiality. Thus, the court found that a client can, and should, reasonably expect that its auditor will keep its confidences in most situations. In Textron Inc., 507 F. Supp. 2d 138 (D.R.I. 2007), a district court observed that the purpose of the work product privilege was to prevent an adversary, or potential adversary, from gaining an unfair advantage by obtaining materials that reveal the company’s strategy or assessment of its case. That privilege could be waived, therefore, only by disclosure in a manner that is inconsistent with keeping privileged information from an adversary. The district court found that disclosing tax accrual workpapers to its accountant was not inconsistent with Textron’s Are courts ready to protect more accountant-client communications? Page 3 of 5 http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/Issues/2014/Jan/20138523.htm?action=print 1/9/2014 keeping those materials from its adversaries, including the IRS. On appeal (Textron Inc., 553 F.3d 87 (1st Cir. 2009)), the First Circuit initially agreed that the work product privilege protected the tax accrual workpapers, but the court also found that Textron’s accountants’ workpapers (which included information from Textron’s tax accrual workpapers) might be discoverable in some circumstances and thus disclosing the tax accrual workpapers to Textron’s accountants might constitute disclosure to a conduit of a potential adversary. The First Circuit, therefore, remanded the case to the district court for more detailed findings on the manner in which Textron shared its tax accrual workpapers with its accountants and whether that disclosure was consistent with keeping those workpapers from its adversaries. However, as noted above, on rehearing, the First Circuit held that tax accrual workpapers are not protected by the work product privilege (Textron Inc., 577 F.3d 21 (1st Cir. 2009)). Most recently, in the Wells Fargo decision, the court treated the auditor-client relationship as confidential rather than adversarial, rejecting the IRS’s argument that Wells Fargo waived its work product privilege on any tax accrual workpapers by disclosing them to its auditor, KPMG. While the IRS argued that KPMG was either an adversary, a potential adversary, or a conduit to an adversary, the court rejected the waiver argument because the IRS failed to produce any evidence that Wells Fargo and KPMG might be adverse to one another. Similarly, the court found that KPMG’s obligation to disclose information to the IRS or other regulatory bodies in remote circumstances did not make KPMG a conduit to an adversary. Thus, the court treated KPMG as working in a protected relationship with Wells Fargo, and its attorneys, in analyzing Wells Fargo’s tax positions. Interestingly, the inquiry’s focus in the opinions is the nature of the information in the workpapers, not who created the documents. For example, in Deloitte, the IRS argued that a memorandum that Deloitte had created was not privileged because an accountant had created it. The D.C. Circuit rejected that argument, reasoning that “the question is not who created the document or how they are related to the party asserting work-product protection, but whether the document contains work product—the thoughts and opinions of counsel developed in anticipation of litigation.” Similarly, the district court in Wells Fargo found that tax accounting workpapers KPMG prepared were entitled to the same protection as those the client or its attorneys prepared. The work product privilege applied to all documents that were closely tied to the attorneys’ analysis, “even if [that analysis] is disclosed within business documents drafted by non-lawyers” (Wells Fargo, slip op. at 82). Thus, it made no difference who created the documents. CONCLUSION These recent cases suggest evolution in judicial thinking about the nature of the relationship between accountants and their clients. Courts are more willing to recognize the accountant’s role as an adviser and counselor seeking to advance the client’s interests. That role is enhanced where the essential confidentiality of communications between accountant and client is recognized, even if that protection frustrates some of the investigative efforts of the IRS and other regulators. Thus, while the law still does not recognize an accountant-client privilege, the courts’ increasing recognition of the need for confidential communication between clients and their accountants may lead to greater protection for their communications. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Accountants working in the tax area may be asked by clients whether they are protected by any privilege similar to the privilege that protects communications between attorneys and clients. Accountants who provide services through an attorney can qualify for the privilege under the Kovel doctrine or through the limited privilege provided under Sec. 7525. Generally, federal courts have been unwilling to recognize a broader accountant-client privilege, finding that accountants owe a duty to the public more than to their clients, which distinguishes it from the attorney-client relationship.

There is, I'm sure... A lot more wrong with me,, than with her.................. I'll miss you, Taxed.

best thing that happened to him at that trip to the casino was the tax withholding.

She didn't do anything bad. From what I understand, one of her posts was hidden, she didn't like being censored, and she asked that her account be removed from the forum. I'm sure it wasn't just that, but a lot of other things that made her feel unwelcome, so I respected her wishes and took care of the account removal.

Do you mean like this ? Or like this ;~) ? The first is by clicking on the smilie in the formating icon bar right above the box where you type, which opens the menu for all of them below the box. The second is just made with punctuation keys.

I still have every HP printer I have ever owned going back to a 4L from the early 90s. I get newer ones only because they get faster. My most current model is HP Laserjet 2055dn. Fast, small footprint, quieter than my older models.

It always seemed like the ones who caused the most payroll problems were also the ones who never felt like they should have to pay for the extra work their screw-ups caused! I totally understand you.

Good way to handle it, Eric.

"Doc, I can't stop singing 'The Green Green Grass of Home'." "That sounds like Tom Jones syndrome." "Is it common?" "It's not unusual."

My practice is relatively small because I prepare my returns (in the evenings and on weekends) outside of my normal day job. I have about 125 clients. Each year, I find one or two that tend to go elsewhere, either due to a relocation or "just because." I have maintained a consistent client base and I find I add a few each year, so the at the end of the season I tend to have more than what I started with.

One day a man decided to retire He booked himself on a Caribbean cruise and proceeded to have the time of his life, that is, until the ship sank. He soon found himself on an island with no other people, no supplies, nothing, only bananas and coconuts. After about four months, he is lying on the beach one day when the most gorgeous woman he has ever seen rows up to the shore. In disbelief, he asks, Where did you come from? How did you get here? She replies, I rowed over from the other side of the island where I landed when my fishing boat sank. Amazing, he notes. You were really lucky to have a row boat wash up with you. Oh, this thing? explains the woman. I made the boat out of some raw material I found on the island. The oars were whittled from gum tree branches. I wove the bottom from palm tree branches, and the sides and stern came from an Eucalyptus tree. But, where did you get the tools? Oh, that was no problem, replied the woman. On the south side of the island, a very unusual stratum of alluvial rock is exposed. I found that if I fired it to a certain temperature in a volcanic vent I found just down island, it melted into ductile iron and I used that to make tools and used the tools to make the hardware. The guy is stunned. Lets row over to my place, she says and Ill give you a tour. So, after a short time of rowing, she soon docks the boat at a small hand built wharf. As the man looks to shore, he nearly falls off the boat. Before him is a long stone walk leading to a cabin and tree house. While the woman ties up the rowboat with an expertly woven hemp rope, the man can only stare ahead, dumb struck. As they walk into the house, she says casually, Its not much, but I call it home. Please sit down. Would you like a drink? No! No thank you, the man blurts out, still dazed. I cant take another drop of coconut juice. Oh, its not coconut juice, winks the woman. I have a still. How would you like a Jack Daniels neat? Trying to hide his continued amazement, the man accepts, and they sit down on her couch to talk. After they exchange their individual survival stories, the woman announces, Im going to slip into something more comfortable. Would you like to take a shower and shave? Theres a razor in the bathroom cabinet upstairs. No longer questioning anything, the man goes upstairs into the bathroom. There, in the cabinet is a razor made from a piece of tortoise bone. Two shells honed to a hollow ground edge are fastened on to its end inside a swivel mechanism. This woman is amazing, he muses. Whats next? When he returns, she greets him wearing nothing but a bandana around her blonde locks and some small flowers on tiny vines, each strategically positioned, she smelled faintly of coconut oil. She then beckons for him to sit down next to her. Tell me, she begins suggestively, slithering closer to him, Weve both been out here for many months. You must have been lonely. When was the last time you had a really good ride? She stares into his eyes. He cant believe what hes hearing. You mean he swallows excitedly as tears start to form in his eyes, Youve built a Harley?