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It's because they are in a hurry to get their piddling little refund RIGHT NOW. And if they go online and see that they are not getting every penny back, but then if they change the exemption to claiming themselves they do, that's what they file. And sometimes it's actually the parent's fault, IMHO, because the parent is telling them, "if you don't get it all back, I'll pay you the difference", which feeds the sense of entitlement the parents already instilled in them. Heaven forbid they should have to sacrifice ANYTHING for the good of the parents who are providing so much already, right?

That is *exactly* it. They're either in a tearing rush for their hundred bucks -- or they chafe at having their taxes go to "mommy and daddy's accountant" and want to prove (to themselves) that they are all grown up and can handle their own returns. And then muck everything up.

This topic wasn't about whether someone chooses to round, how to work around the issue by not entering decimal points, who has the ability to round or be a tax preparer, program stability, or whether it's a particular user's priority; it was a question about how ATX chose to program the form.

Clarification, if you are not a member there is a $ 20 Fee.

Deducting it is the election. No asset. I like to use description "Start up costs".

over on another forum someone posted a similar topic and is worried that with 50 schedule D items then he might be understating the total by almost $25 if every item was at $x.49. some people have too much time on their hands.

I don't enter the cents either.

Mine was a loan modification, clearly spelled out on the first page of the contract. If she had just brought the 1099c in last year, it would have been so much easier.

I posted the other day that I constantly battle the feeling of being overwhelmed. I imagine we all feel that way, And I also imagine we all have that proverbial monkey jump on our back at least one time during tax season. It happened to me Thursday. That is about 20 to 30 days sooner than normal - and it is down right scary. Thursday afternoon I completely zoned out for almost three hours. I keep a daily time sheet and there is a block of time that I do not know what I did. For all I know, I could have taken an extended nap at my desk. I do know that it felt like I was walking and moving in cement. I attribute the early hour of that coming on to all of this nonsensical stuff the government is forcing on us. I am taking a very hard look after April and at a minimum I am thinking I am going to hire a very competent person to take the bulk of my load and I will come to the office two to three days per week during the off season and three to four days per week during tax season. I am very ready to start moving toward retirement.

I just had a new client come in that would be an EZ form except for 45K in medical. I told her about a week because when my brain can't handle any more foreign currency conversions or multi state allocations, I pull out a few returns that I know I can get done. Makes me feel better getting one off the desk.

My clients warn their kids -- and it must go in one ear and out the other, because the kids go online and file their own returns - incorrectly - anyway. It's not like they lose their puny $127 refund for not claiming themselves, so I don't know why they insist on mucking everything up.

These are the top ten reasons I should have got out last year: 1. Wouldn't have had to try to operate without my well seasoned administrative assistant. 2. Tangible repair regs 3. late tax legislation (again) 4. ACA 5. Wouldn't have come in to a flooded office... 6. ...after having heard about a friends suicide and trying to mentally deal with that. 7. Form 3115 8. Wouldn't have had to scramble to get my parking lot plowed (after being closed 2 days due to the flooded office), because my guy never showed and his number now belongs to someone with limited English skills. 9. My back wouldn't have went out while trying to clean the flooded office... 10. Less stress - and more sleep Thanks for listening to me cry. it has been a very tough week

New client came in the other day. Prepared her return with the AOC for her 18yo college daughter. efile is rejected. Ask her (again) about her daughter. Oh yea - she went to HRB. One W2 for about $1,700 (one thousand, seven hundred) with $170 withholding and of course HRB took her exemption, as well as filed for the college credit. These "well educated" kids run to HRB with their piddly W2s to get their $170 piece of their billions back, while impacting their parents who are shelling out (or borrowing) thousands to put them through college. SMH

I believe we discussed this topic last year and I know some people round on their own. Is there a reason form 8949 is not programmed to round automatically? Almost every form I use on ATX allows you input numbers with cents and the form is programmed to round. Its a nice feature from an input standpoint because you can simply input exactly what the numbers are on the various W2's amd 1099's we work with. For whatever reason, ATX has programmed 8949 to not allow cents during input and its not a very effiicent process.

In looking at IRS transcripts, I've learned they truncate instead of rounding so 1.99 rounds down to 1 in IRS system.

In many, many cases, they don't get any more back by claiming the exemption.

Because the feds sometimes make huge changes that would cost the state a lot of lost revenue. So even if they do eventually conform, they may need time to plan for the effect of the change on their total picture.

3 hours later, I awake. Dinner, bank, grocery store. Back to the salt mines. I don't quite trust the 'take a picture of the check' thing.

There's an app for that.

Yardley, Good point! I've been wondering why also. Entering the decimal and cents is a way I make sure I enter all figures correctly. I compare my software total to the sheet I use to manually enter totals that I've rounded and then add them using a calculator. If the total on the software and the total from the calculator don't agree, I have an ESP! True story: Years ago (I'm telling my age here) a state auditor was at one of our local colleges reviewing their books. The auditor kept seeing "ESP" in various lines on the ledger sheets. After he scratch his head for a good while, he turned to the employee who kept the ledger and asked what the "ESP" meant. He was almost reluctant to ask as he thought the employee may know something that he should have known until the employee replied to his question: "Oh, that be an Error Some Place"! TRUE STORY!!!!!!

I NEVER use a decimal point on any input to the tax return or program. Problem solved.

I would say that there is a 1 in 500 chance that anyone looks at those descriptions. I agree with cbslee. Call it what it is and go forward.

I have high energy days and days where I collapse on the couch for a nap by 3pm (and I don't start work until 11am at the earliest). Today I thought I was high energy, but now that the last of nonstop clients have left, the couch is calling. I haven't even deposited checks for a week!

I still do student children of my clients at no charge....but they STILL go online and do it themselves and blow the exemption. I guess at 18, some of them are smarter than me.

I find it's more the complexity of the return than the size of the practice. I do fewer than 200 returns per year. Many of them, though, go to 75-100 pages with all the supporting schedules and worksheets. I also deal with folks with offshore accounts - and in some cases foreign businesses. It gets real hairy, real fast - and even when we think we've covered all bases in a drop-off interview that lasts two hours of going through minutiae, I end up stumbling across stuff we did not cover - and then the client has to go dig for more details while I pore over tax treaty nonsense. My new assistant, though, is doing really well at handling everything I throw at him. Next week he's getting the additional chore of doing Excel spreadsheets for me for charitable donations. I have clients who bring hand-written lists marked "incomplete" along with printouts of emailed receipts plus paper end of year receipts, and it all has to be cross-checked to make sure nothing is duplicated but everything is included. He gets the job!

So THAT is what the guy on the commercial is talking about....."We'll get you the biggest refund back, guaranteed!" The taxpayers with sense won't go to them, however, their child who is college student will! I' always concerned about losing tax dollars needlessly...the parents would more than likely receive 100% benefit of the credit.....the student more than likely 40%..... Yep, The guy is right! The student got the largest refund at their place, (even though he probably wasn't entitled to it)!

The problem with H&R is that they're, for the most part, inexperienced and they don't deal with repeat clientele. In the above situation...the original preparer should be amending for free. Maybe if someone feels it in the pocket...they might learn something.

Agreed...It is the preparer who is to blame...they should be asking more questions....like "hmmm...you are a college student with income of $1,700...Can someone claim you as a dependent?"...But then again, asking questions is not H & R Schmuck's thing.

Not the kids...not the parent's fault. "The people" don't know about exemptions. They come to us for those things. A 30-something "software architect' who made about $250,000 last year just asked me "what are exemptions?" this morning. It's the fault of the preparer. He/she should have known to ask an 18 year old college student if her parents were claiming her.

I have restaurant clients. I have been using this description for over 20 years with no problems.

I used to think that someday, I would like to have the problems that you all have with being backed up. Until this year, I never had returns laying on my desk that were not waiting for more information or just signature pages from the client. Everything that came in got started that day and was done within a day if the information was all there. This year is different. For a lot of personal reasons and a lot of client personal reasons, I have a stack of returns waiting for client information, and 3 returns that I have not even started on my desk. I was going to get 3 of them done last night, but only got 1 Scorp almost done when I ran into a little bug in the software. I usually can get caught up on the weekend, but last weekend and this weekend, I have family in town and I just feel like I am sinking. I need 2 quite days to get my returns caught up so I feel inferior in the size of my practice to all of you again. Tom Newark, CA

It is indeed a valid rollover but keeping the papers ready to mail in if/when the IRS sends a letter of non-comprehension of their *own* $#@ rules is a wise pre-emptive strike. I know the details now and have them to hand; 15 months from now I'll be scratching my head over where I filed the information and what exactly happened.

I have a couple of big S-corps that dropped off as well as three more individuals, so need to start on the S-corps now. Almost everything else is going to wait until after 15 March. I guess I'm now at least three weeks out. My "extension" date is moving closer to 1 March this year. I'm blaming it on ACA and the Repair Regs.

In this case, you may have problems. Easy enough to report the income on wife's return. No argument from IRS. The problem is, the withholding was reported under the deceased's SSN and she cannot get to it. And you cannot file a return for the deceased for the year after death and ask for a refund. I had the exact same problem a few years back and after some effort located the Tax Unit of the custodian who was responsible for issuing the 1099R. Read him the riot act, and told him he had two choices: either issue a corrected 1099R with payee's SSN on it, sending corrected copies to IRS, or issue a refund of the taxes withheld and adjust their next withholding report accordingly. (This was from instructions from IRS, BTW.) He chose Option #1 and we were able to file on spouse's return and get credit for the withholding. I would think you will have the same problem with the state. Even getting an EIN and filing through the estate, it is still the same situation. Withholdings are not under the estate's EIN either, so no credit.

Another example would be penmanship......ie: Cursive

It is my opinion, that since the cancellation was for debt on his primary residence, you can use that reason for not taxing it on form 982. We had a very similar situation.

Income because the SSA has a specific order it pays the funds out, and it paid directly to the son and not the estate. The order of payment is included in the link you provided to SSA's form 1724. The son filled out that form and he must have indicated that he had the right to receive it, if he didn't and if it should have been included in the estate to be distributed to all beneficiaries, then he should have filled out the 1724 for the payment to be paid to the estate. Social security benefits are one type of income paid that is IRD. IRD retains the same character on the recipients return as it would have been reported on the original owner's tax return. SSA doesn't issue 1099-misc. Anyway, if the son's income is high enough that 85% of his own SS is being taxed, at least he is getting a break of 15% of the parent's SS not being taxed also.

I've had several clients donate appreciated P&G stock over the years, most of which was part of the company stock purchase plans. They have provided me with the basis, I look up FMV date of gift, list on 8283. So far, knock wood, no surprises. Well, one surprise. A couple of years ago one gift had a lower FMV than the basis. I advised her that she look at the value in the future, realize losses first, if any, than donate. She never imagined it would happen.

Thank you all. I had put the # of days. Once that was taken out everything fell in place.

Life is short.... Enjoy it now...before you're too old/sick Sell.... I think next year will be worse...when we'll need to input all those medical insurance forms.

Don't change the code. I don't use Drake, but someplace around the Taxable box (or even the Code box) you should be able to access a drop-down menu or link to a worksheet or other input area where it asks you how much was rolled over. Now your 1099-R matches the 1099-R and your 5498 matches the 5498.