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You didn't give enough info yet for anyone here to compute his basis. Clearly there were losses or distributions in prior years that created that negative balance in retained earnings, but we don't know if aggregate prior year losses were enough that stock basis has been reduced to -0- by the start of the year you are working on, and if there was a reduction in debt basis prior to the BOY. Was debt basis at BOY a reduced amount below 100% of its value? Basically, there is stock basis and there is debt basis. Once stock basis is zeroed out, the shareholder can continue to deduct losses on his personal return up to the amount of debt basis. If both have been fully used, then his basis is truly -0-. If the debt basis had been reduced below its face value, any repayments of the loan that are paid to the shareholder might create taxable income. The character of that income depends on the type of loan. The shareholder's basis doesn't have to be -0- to create this income, only that debt basis had been previously used (reduced) when he deducted losses, and if repayment of the loan is made before the debt basis is restored to 100% of face value, then he will have income.

I agree with this. If a user is absolutely sure that they are sticking with a particular program, then go ahead and take advantage of the discount. On the other hand, if a user wants to see if major problems of the prior year have been resolved to their satisfaction, that promises made by the vendor have been kept, AND that user doesn't need the program before February, the discount may not be worth the hassle of renewing early only to find out that the program is no longer suited to their particular practice. In that case, it may be better to wait and let others test out the early releases and fixes. That small a discount only represents one or two returns for many or most of us.

Many of my single member s corps have 0 stock basis at year end some of the time, or even a lot of the time. It happens because of having debts/loans that do not increase stock basis, and do not provide debt basis. Debt basis is very restrictive in s corps. It's much easier in partnerships. They use those debts to buy assets that are 179'd or bonus depreciated to zero, wiping out income or even showing a loss. If they take too many distributions, their stock basis will hit zero and excess distributions are taxed as capital gains. I NEVER let any of my s corps have loans payable to shareholders, because it's too much of a pain to deal with loan repayments where debt basis was used to deduct losses. Also, imputed interest. I always move the loans to paid in capital to increase stock basis. Keeps things much, much simpler and that's always a priority for me.

First off, you can't have negative basis in an S corp. Basis stops at zero. What you probably have are 200k in suspended losses due to lack of basis. The good news is that the 300k gain in the s corp will increase basis, but they should only take 100K in distributions this year so they leave enough basis to take all of the suspended losses. Is there any chance that they can utilize the 0% bracket for LTCG on their 1040?

Heard it before and before and before.... No consistency among sales people and discounts.

If you take this discount you pay in December. If you defer till February you lose discount. According to Sales yesterday AM.

Any body seen or heard what the renewal prices will be? If you take this discount can you wait till Feb to actually pay?

You have to work through the basis worksheets. It is possible that your colleague is correct. Also, the repayment of the loan can be either capital gain income or ordinary income, depending on the structuring of the loan. If the loan is evidenced by a note, it's possible that the repayment will be capital gain income. If the loan is "open" with no documentation in place, the taxable income triggered by the repayment would be ordinary income. http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/issues/2004/nov/avoidthetaxtrapwhenrepayingshareholderloans.htm

To clarify that I am not entirely clueless, I have two external drives for each computer. I alternate complete backups frequently. The most recent backup goes in the safe. The other backup goes somewhere else off-site. At the same time, I export each return as I am working on it to a jump drive. The reason for the panic was because I was working on a new laptop that did not have all of the returns on it. However, after catching my breath, I realized that it did have the returns I was working on; on the hard drive. I exported those. When I got home, I exported all of the 2014 returns to the jump drive and I am now back to where I started. Incidentally, my last extended return left my office yesterday afternoon. I have one more to mail out and I am finished with 2014; for now. All returns have been filed and accepted. Some quarterly payroll and bookkeeping to do and I will be out from under pressure for a few weeks. Then, it starts all over again. Thank you all for your input.

Another page from IRS site: http://www.irs.gov/Businesses/Small-Businesses-&-Self-Employed/Husband-and-Wife-Business

If they are truly running one business, they should be filing a partnership return, or they might be able to be a qualified joint venture and report on separate Sch Cs and Sch SEs: http://www.irs.gov/Help-&-Resources/Tools-&-FAQs/FAQs-for-Individuals/Frequently-Asked-Tax-Questions-&-Answers/Small-Business,-Self-Employed,-Other-Business/Entities/Entities

Download the initial ATX disk (instead of getting it in the mail). Keep it as a file on YOUR hard drive and at the end of the season (year) download the latest ATX disk again keeping it on your hard drive. Now (and you could do this at each step too) simply save the ATX program file to a thumb drive and if you want burn it to a CD rom or DVD. Even if you do not have a "burner" simply take the thumb drive with the programs to your local Wal-Mart and have them burn you a copy (friends, family, other stores do this too). Now you have your backup and install disk as you want. Remember to save your install codes too.

Download the install file. You can then store it on a CD or on removable media. I hope that ATX stops sending CD's all together. The program on the CD becomes useless within 2 weeks of mailing. Charge me less shipping and stop sending CD's.