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liquor is supposed to go under staff moral or mental heath training....Everyone that has gone through a recent tax season should know that.

As has been noted by others, more information is needed. How long has the client been living in the States? Did he receive any sort of immigrant-visa? Form 8843 is normally used to exempt people from 'counting the days', i.e., becoming de facto resident aliens. If your client is a non-resident alien, he must report only those parts of foreign income that are US-sourced - he must pro-rate. As for his US income, the situation depends: there is a whole category called 'income non-effectively connected with a US trade or business' - e.g., stocks, bonds, insurance premiums, gambling, etc. Such income, whilst not reported like wages, interest,on the return as such, etc., is, nevertheless, subject to a special tax, which is based either on the target country's tax treaty with the US, or, absent a treaty, it is a flat 30% - no ifs, ands or buts. And remember: if a non-resident wants to leave the US, he has to secure the still quaintly named 'sailing permit', from the IRS district office, certifying that he has no US tax liabilities. In other words, this sort of thing is not exactly easy.And then there's the whole issue of dual status (which has nothing to do with dual citizenship). We want to help - but we need info.

And in this case, "Bankruptcy fee" might be ideal, since the signal it sends is "this guy was in bankruptcy, so even if we find anything questionable, it will probably be exempt." Auditors don't like to waste their time.

When I first got into the accounting business over 40 years ago, I was told to look at anything I was tempted to put into "Miscellaneous" and imagine someone asking me to explain what that expenditure was really for. The answer to that question is where the initial entry should go. So I just make that up-front decision and I never use "Miscellaneous" on a financial statement or a tax return.

The thing I like about soccer. If the US is doing well in the World Cup, we can watch the games and get excited about it. If they start doing badly, we can just go back to something important and say "Oh well, it's only soccer."

That's why I don't tell them not to use Miscellaneous - I just ask for a transaction report for that account and then pop things into the correct account with a journal entry. Some clients use Ask Accountant the same way, but most of them like miscellaneous better because they think they already know where it goes.

It's gone from a seldom-used remedy for truly 'abandoned' assets, to legal theft by government, IMHO. At a minimum, the time frame should be longer than 5 years, and it should be a requirement that the banks, insurance companies, etc should attempt to contact the owners before turning anything over to the state, THEN, the state should be REQUIRED to have a reasonable and speedy system for returning seized assets to rightful owners. The worst is when states sell family heirlooms when the same safe deposit box contains identifying documents, which they do not even try to track down.

I'm with a credit union too. My savings accounts are fairly dormant; one account for rentals only has the security deposits in them and so is rarely touched. I haven't had any notices of 'dormancy' from them. A former coworker had an investment account escheated; it held Apple stock, and she was holding it for appreciation. The last I heard from her she was still trying to get it back.

Ah, yes, QB makes it so easy, just adding a new account for not only new situations but for typos too.

For accounting clients, I prefer them to use Miscellaneous or Uncategorized instead of them creating a new chart of account for everything, last year I cleaned up a companies chart of accounts, we went from have 8 pages to 2 pages.

I also drink a few times small amounts.