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I decided to merge the throught on pi day with the thread on Form 8283 and the rounding discussion. If I prepare any returns today with non-cash contributions over $500, I'm going to divide the client-furnished FMV by 3.141592653, and the truncated result is the number I'm entering on the 8283. Thaty will probably be a more accurate figure than what the client thinks their junk is worth.

And hopefully the pictures are not of seven black garbage bags.

Throwback Thursday | The Pi Day of the Century By Katherine Schulten What will you be doing on 3/14/15 at 9:26:53? If you’re a math enthusiast, maybe you’ll be celebrating the once-a-century day when the calendar and the clock align to represent the first 10 digits of pi (3.141592653). Though we don’t think anyone in 1915 was baking pies, writing pi-ku or rapping about the number, as some do these days, no March 14 until now has been more numerically notable: As you remember from middle school geometry, pi is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, and is always the same, no matter what circle you use to compute it. It is an irrational number that never repeats, with an infinite number of decimal places — though in 2013 a researcher took it to eight quadrillion places right of the decimal. This year, the “Pi Day of the Century” will be marked in all kinds of creative ways. At the San Francisco Exploratorium, where the official celebration first began, you can participate in a pi procession and pizza pie dough tossing. If you’re an applicant to the M.I.T. class of 2019, you’ll find out at exactly 9:26 whether or not you were admitted: If you live near Princeton, N.J, you might attend their annual Pi Day festivities, which also celebrate the March 14 birthday of the longtime Princeton resident Albert Einstein. There will be pie-throwing and -eating contests, as well as an Einstein look-alike competition. And, of course, you can always buy a commemorative Pi Day 2015 T-shirt. Here are a few more ideas, from The Times and around the Web. Learning About Pi, and Pi Day, History The San Francisco Exploratorium provides a quick overview of 4,000 years of the history of the number. In 1988 a physicist there, Larry Shaw, founded March 14 as Pi Day. And in 2009 the House of Representatives passed a resolution supporting the designation. Having Fun With the Math of Pi Where would we be without Pi? What are some of its real-world applications? Try to answer these questions after doing some of the following exercises: In our 2008 lesson plan Pi Anyone? we suggest three different ways of calculating and estimating pi. The Exploratorium has a number of hands-on ideas for learning about pi, including cutting, wearing, searching, tossing and “seeing” the number. WikiHow makes this suggestion: Convert things into pi. This step is necessary for two reasons: first, to utterly confuse people who have no idea what you’re talking about, and second, to have fun seeing how many things can be referenced with pi. This will help you reach an even higher appreciation for the amazing number that is pi. Consider two approaches: Use pi to tell the time. Convert naturally circular things into radians, like the hours on the clock. Instead of it being 3 o’clock, now it’s 1/2 pi o’clock. Or, instead of it being 3 o’clock, convert the inclination of the sun into radians and describe that as the time. Simply use 3.14 as a unit of measure. Instead of being 31 years old, you are 9pi years old. With this same approach, you can find out your next pi birthday (don’t forget to celebrate it when it comes!). And the Times’s Numberplay blog has a pi machine puzzle based on a new, original and “remarkably simple” method of calculating pi that requires just two balls and a wall. Finally, PiDay.org has a list of ways teachers have celebrated Pi Day in the classroom.

And I will give pie to anyone with Form 8283 who can actually itemize. Which is also one in 100.

A new customer comes in today, he's in his early 70's and still works. He drives a lot to job sites, I ask him how many miles he drove for business. He replies "Oh about...." I ask if he has other business expenses, he says he has a cell phone just for work, I ask how much did you spend, he says "Oh about...: He said he subscribes to professional magazines and spends "oh about..." He was missing his SS statement so I ask him if he knows what is monthly payments is, he says Oh about.... And there were several other "Oh about" So how does someone get to the 70's and still are not able to get it together. I could expect "Oh about" form a 18 year old, but this man has been a professional business person for longer then I'vee been alive.

We toasted "pi time" with tea this morning, and plan to have pie for dessert tonight. We also are getting a kick out of MIT's using that minute to release notice of new student acceptances. I really like the idea of conflating pi day and 8283 guesstimates.

Hahaha the emoticon says it all, there, jasdlm. And, crap, if I had known pictures of the inside of my mouth would substantiate dental expense, I coulda got past the 10% shave. Also, don't let me forget to run down to the landfill and take pictures of my donations for 2015.

I was hoping my favorite math teacher would jump in here, and she did. She is the one who taught me to memorize all the digits of pi. That was a breeze. But I'm still working on getting them in the right order.

Now that is a tough call!!

He could tell her that the last 2 years of returns might need to be amended to reverse the erroneous deduction claimed. And maybe she should consult her tax preparer or a tax attorney. That might convince her to leave him alone.

Keep resending the same email. (The 'no 2014 donation' email.)

A client this year included photos from his dental exam (I guess). 8 photos of his teeth and the inside of his mouth from several different angles. Fascinating.

Ever since the IRS made the brokers give cost basis...and summarize everything in a few short lines...life is so nice.

I think, but I do not know this for sure or from experience , but I think 70 is the age of passage and license to the "oh, about" thing. I would probably put on his return the exact numbers that he says "oh about" and you will probably be as close or closer to reality than numbers you put on some other returns.

I am "Oh About" in my seventies and I have days like that. For instances; I have been searching two days for my extra office key which my assistant gave back to me. I put it somewhere so I would remember where it was. It is definitely "Oh about" somewhere.

I did a return last week that I had quoted a low price on because the person is the 94 year old mother of one of my very,very nice clients. Well, when I finished the return, I realized there was an opportunity here. So I billed her $50 and one pie. The next day she sent her son-in-law in with an apple pie made with snow apples. Oh wait............we are talking about the other kind of pi. Never mind!

Great post, KC! For those interested here is the Princeton University Pi Day Facebook page. I live about 15 miles from Princeton. https://www.facebook.com/PrincetonPiDay?fref=nf

It's a personality thing....not an age thing.

Yes, I'm 70 and I have days like that. Sure it's irritating, but I agree his 'about $___' is probably as good as the amounts on many a client's neatly printed page of data.

Sorry...just couldn't resist. When I opened the " E-News for Tax Professionals 2015-10" I saw the title of the E-News as written above in the Topic Title of this post. Needless to say, the body was written in Spanish (?) also. Insanity! Enuf said!

Yep, I have them installed on win7. I think they're so basic they will work for quite some time.

From a user perspective - not a programmer - re-booting, for whatever reason, as Jack points out, takes care of a myriad of issues. I reboot my workstation twice a day - first thing and again when I change venue and start working remote late afternoon. It has handled nearly all of my memory, well, my computer's memory, issues. On a completely separate note, and not to highjack this thread, but I have an issue on my server that started with the 2012 program and it has to do with the Raven database. Something is backing up every couple of minutes to the C drive on my server. It does not take long (about a week or less) to cause a space issue on the server. I have to go into the c drive in the windows folder and then the system 32 folder and then the backup folder and then the database folder then select all and delete everything there. This frees up about 8g on my c drive on the server. Again, I do this, actually multiple times a week. Any thoughts? Again, keep in mind my computer knowledge is limited.

Real Estate Property Foreclosure and Cancellation of Debt ATG Publication Date - February 2015 NOTE: This guide is current through the publication date. Since changes may have occurred after the publication date that would affect the accuracy of this document, no guarantees are made concerning the technical accuracy after the publication date. Table of Contents Chapter 1: Overview Purpose Brief History Exceptions Definitions Key Tax Issues Chapter 2: Type of Debt Nonrecourse and Recourse Debt Gain and Loss Computation and Cancellation of Debt Income Chapter 3: Income from Discharge of Indebtedness Bankruptcy Insolvency Qualified Farm Indebtedness Qualified Real Property Business Indebtedness Qualified Principal Residence Indebtedness Audit Techniques Chapter 4: Tax Attribute Reduction Reduction of Tax Attributes Depreciation Recapture Reductions Summary of Tax Attribute Reduction Rules Bankruptcy, Insolvency, and Farm – Attributes Reduction Qualified Real Property Business Indebtedness–Attributes Reduction Qualified Principal Residence Indebtedness - Attribute Reduction Chapter 5: Rental Real Estate Property Introduction Qualifying Dispositions under IRC §469(g) Non-qualifying Dispositions under IRC §469(g) Depreciation Recapture Character of Property at Disposition Lease with Option to Buy Property Rental Audit Strategies Chapter 6: Tax Consequences of Abandonments Chapter 7: Form 1099-A and Form 1099-C Background Examination Considerations Inaccurate or Questionable Forms 1099-A and 1099-C Chapter 8: Community and Common Law Property Community and Common Law Property Systems Community Property Chapter 9: Audit Strategies Summary of Real Estate Property Audit Strategies Case File Documentation Standard Paragraphs and Explanation of Adjustments Job Aids Resources for Real Estate Foreclosures and Cancellation of Debt Income Chapter 10: Rehabilitation Credit and IRC §469 Background Audit Hints Chapter 11: Low Income Housing Credit Low-Income Housing Credit $25,000 Offset Disposition of Passive Activity

Form 1041 is an income tax form to report taxable income, not for reporting distribution of the value of assets to beneficiaries.

Not obnoxious does not mean timid. Jesus threw a premeditated fit in the temple that day. Made a whip. And I respect Him to the utmost. You, too. But, yeah, I can whack them in tech support, no problem.

I have some really nice elderly clients with very low income who refuse to not pay me. We have arrived at a deal - $25 plus a dozen home made chocolate chip cookies. The latter are worth so much more than they can imagine.

It is never inappropriate to talk about pie.

You're talking to the least obnoxious person on earth, you know. Might as well tell me to not be a smart ass.

Thanks, Carolbeck! I am now set on 5 minute auto-saves!

OMG, yes! And when a client waits a month to pick up you don't sit there going "Uh, WTH did I do there?"

I annotate *everything* because no matter how crystal clear it is now, it will be dense mud next year. Heck, it will be dense mud next *month* for that matter.

Enter the positive amount on the appropriate line of the Line 21 worksheet, then enter a description on one of the blue lines down there on the worksheet and enter the negative amount. Print the worksheet, cause if you're like me, you'll forget what happened.

We'd like to hope so, but I've had brokers tell me that their organization won't enter or track any basis that wasn't derived from transactions that their firm didn't initiate or take place while the investor wasn't their client. Good example is if the client has inherited stocks, I've had brokers refuse to enter those into their system to calc the gain or loss because they don't want to take responsibility if the figures are incorrect.

The ONLY reason IRS is being proactive on identity theft is because they got "crawled on the carpet" about sitting back and only going after those who committed identity theft many, many times. Each of the steps they recommend are vitally important if a taxpayer is seeking a quick resolution to their case...and who isn't?

Jack, while we know http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i8283.pdf is not authoritative it is still reasonable to use it's guidance.

Call tech support. Be obnoxious till the "customer service" person connects you to a tech. There is a function inside the program that should only be set to once a day that is happening once an hour. I do not remember where that setting was, but if you do get to a real tech, it can be changed.

Not to sound mean, but maybe a few of the "Texting" and driving people would swerve off away from me instead of using my car as a steering bumper to keep it between the lines.

Yes you can, it is in your ATX Preferences. Options, Preferences, Open Return, Auto-Save. Sorry my Chrome will not let me "Snip" and Paste the screen shot. Hope this helps!

KC thanks for the reply and I still feel this is non-taxable. The 1099G payer is "The National Institute of Health" which falls real closely under the description in my original post. I can't give you any more details that what I have already. I do want to avoid the CP2000 and do need to amend 2013 as we claimed it as income then. I have offered to do this pro-bono based on the apparent mistake last year so I want to be sure.

back when my mom died I was using atx and it wouldn't let me efile with a value over 5k so I broke it down into separate donations, of around 4500 each till I got to the full value. clothing, dining room furniture, bedroom furniture, you get the picture. as for the clients that make numerous donations to the same organization, I usually lump them.

Google the properties of Lithium...

How many of you actually believe that the IRS actually looks at signatures, much less COMPARES them to prior returns, at the time of filing? I'd bet serious money that trhey never do that until/unless there is some problem with the return.

There is a LOT of chemical energy in batteries. Discharging that energy all at once is *not* an easily controlled activity. This has been a public service announcement. Better living through chemistry!

I know of what you speak. Except that this mom died. They had every single item itemized; so who am I to complain except had to tell them they couldn't go over $5000 without an appraisal.

I do like the way ATX revamped the form this year, though. Also, if someone has 5 Goodwill receipts, we just enter it all as one. If it doesn't change the tax, who cares.

Imagine that happening while driving and texting ...OUCH!....

Cool video. But I don't believe that I will try this at home.

Terry, we can't be sure without knowing more details that you do know, but it does sound as if, based on your stated facts, it's not taxable. To avoid a CP2000, I'd put it on, then take it back off on Line 21 as "Error in reporting non-taxable Grant".