Leaderboard

Receptionist is getting tired of hearing..... ...............How much do you charge.?........

Next time they call, have some fun with them. "Today I entered your income from your W-2 form. Tomorrow I'll get the withholding entered. Then maybe the next day I'll get to your wife's w-2. By the weekend I'll have your home mortgage interest and property taxes entered. These numbers are all pretty large, so it takes time to get them right. Then I'll start on your interest & dividend income. (That won't take too long). So as you can see, it's going pretty good overall. And with all this time it's taking, especially adding in the time to take your phone calls & give you progress reports, I'm really happy to see how your bill is adding up."

Seriously, though, it amazes me that people think we do their returns in stages. What is this - a garden? And also that they apparently think we don't really care about getting paid. We just pile up finished returns for the nice feeling we get inside.

Heads up on a scam e-mail I just got from "Casey Jordan, Speedy Tax LLC". The subject of the email was as follows: "Catherine, can you takeon a new client in zip _ _ _ _ _?" I wrote the "takeon" above as it appeared on my email. As I live in a small rural area in Louisiana, I know for a fact that there is no "Beth Lee" in my zip code who has contacted "Casey" for some help with her tax return.....there is no "Beth Lee" that lives in my zip code period! Two quick giveways were the facts that (1) his/her email address ended in ".us" and (2) the closing in the "personal" email he wrote to me was "Cheers,".....how stupid can one be? Another fact that blew his/her cover was that he/she stated that unless I contacted him/her by return email, he/she would send an email to the "next preparer on the _ _ _ _ _ (zip code) list"......when I am the ONLY preparer on the list in my zip code! I wish I could get my hands on him/her about right now.....if it is a "he", it wouldn't be a "he" much longer!

Well, I love everybody right now! Just finished the return of the biggest PITA client in the history of the world. Ever. Has a daughter-in-law who's an EA, and a son who's a CPA, and you know that feeling when somebody tells you what you can do on the return? Yeah, that feeling. Lean into it with me. And yeah, recall that feeling when you resist the urge to say, "Now why the hell am I doing your return again?" Yippee, I made it thru another year of not saying that to her. Go me!

I'm getting a little tired of hearing people blame Obama for the Affordable Care Act. I've been telling people that there are 535 people in the Congress that they've been forgetting about. As time goes on I'm apt to get a little rude about it.

I got a similar email a couple of weeks ago with the requirement to reply immediately as whoever was going out of town, blah, blah, blah. I deleted it. I'm so sick of scammers!

WARNING **** Political commentary coming. TP & Spouse come in. Have the 1095A in their stack. No insurance first 2 months. Covered CA for the rest of the year. $1427 per month premium. $1103 subsidy. Do the reconciliation. They have to pay back $1090. Actually a very good result. Their take: "That stupid Obama took $1090 of my refund. I thought it was supposed to make things better". Then I show them my fee for the additional forms. Their take: "You mean I have to pay you more so that you can tell Obama how much of my refund to take?" My take in my head: "At least you are blaming Obama for this mess. And I am not going to try to convince you otherwise. Besides, you got a $1427 per month policy for about $500 per month. Go ahead and get pissed at Obama. I get more money and I get to sit and listen to you trash the guy who thinks he just helped you out and does not understand that you are pissed at him. This is a win-win for me" Tom Newark, CA

My wife just mentioned how pleasant tax season is since we ridded our practice of some of the the real PITA's a few years ago - the kind that just like to keep everything in their world stirred up. So I had this thought. Would it be wrong to ask our prospective clients to submit to a personality test before we agree to take them on? Here is a sample of the client we will accept: Phone call yesterday: Client: Hi Ron, I just wanted to check and make sure you received the package I mailed a couple weeks ago. Me: Yes, client, we did get it. Things are just a little bogged down around here with the new reporting requirements and....... Client cuts me off mid-sentence: Ron, I don't care about all that. I have complete and utmost confidence in you and your staff. I just wanted to make sure you got my stuff, that's all. Have a wonderful day! Me: Thanks Client, we will be in touch. I want all of my clients to be like that.

YES IT DOES!!!!! That sounds exactly like Rita! Love ya girl.

And you haven't? Are you OK Rita? That does not sound like you.

I deduct the value of my time on everyone else's return, why not mine?

But don't try to deduct the value of your time on your tax return. Tax tip of the day. ;)

I kinda work year round, but only because I have a few late, late extenders (including me.) I dumped all corps, partnerships, payroll, etc 3 or 4 years ago and boy does it make life easier. No more deadlines except for April & Oct 15. Then after April, I can pretty darn well do them when I darn well feel like it. The rest of the time I have a life.

Do you have caller ID? She could answer any unknown callers by saying, "Gould's Morgue; you stab 'em we slab 'em!" Or she could just think of doing that.. sometimes it's almost as much fun without the possibility of saying that to an IRS agent.

Does everyone understand that we can now charge for preparation on a contingency basis? Tax court ruled that preparing a return is not practicing before the IRS. Have the receptionist say: "35% of your refund, $200 minimum for 1040, additional forms extra."

Guy in here whining because his insurance cost $467 a month. Me: It actually cost $210, didn't it? Your subsidy was $257? You gotta get up preeetty early to get that past tax preparers, people.

I was under the mis-informed impression that slavery had been outlawed - until I was in the position you find yourself and reality set in. Better days are coming Rita - if you can survive the tide. Frankly, I worked 105 hours per week during the past ten or so tax seasons for very similar reasons. Those reasons don't exist anymore and I am getting by with 80 hours per week. There will be a lot more extensions, but frankly my dear............. Glad that one is behind you!

Wow - bless your heart! I do not believe I would touch that one. When the client comes in pretending to know more than I do, it is time for us to part company. Not that I am all that smart - but they are paying me to know more than they do. Wow!!! Go have an ice tea girl!

Under the Return Manager check the box for your client: 1. In the Tool Bar click the support button 2. About 2/3 of the way down the drop down list select "Customer Service Utilities" 3. Click on the last choice in the next drop down list, "Re-download Forms on Marked Returns" Let us know if this helped.

That's pretty much the case with us. We stopped printing client letters years ago. The best we do today is to manually print their federal and state refunds or oweds on their billing invoice. I still have to field a few hundred calls over the year to check these refund amounts anyway. Clients are very hands-off with their taxes, as I'm sure you know. We make the effort to focus their attention on what their refunds are, their vouchers, and any paper filings they have to do (largely for Ohio, it's the municipal one). Everything else is just stuffed into the document envelop and marked with the tax year and their name. Too often these are just lost or filed away, and we were doing a lot of "can you give me a copy of my 2012 filing thanks so much", etc. At least I changed that so we CHARGE ($20 per tax year) for making those copies. We stay open all year and making a few hundred copies of client filings was looking like too much of a pointless cost; we'd get a few dozen print requests in the first 3 months after giving their current year copy. We were paying for client laziness.

I have noticed the people complaining the most have 1095-A forms and I'm dying to tell them to shut up, I am paying my own health insurance and yours, too.

We combine the state and federal letters. Have no problems. They come out great and I found them easy to customize. I am happy with the client letter function this season.

My clients are the ones that pointed it out. Do I have the weirdest clients? Truthful on charitable, do mileage logs and read the client letters....

Tax home. Generally, your tax home is your regular or main place of business or post of duty regardless of where you maintain your family home. If you do not have a regular or main place of business because of the nature of your work, then your tax home may be the place where you regularly live. If you do not have a regular or a main place of business or post of duty and there is no place where you regularly live, you are considered an itinerant (a transient) and your tax home is wherever you work. As an itinerant, you are never away from home and cannot claim a travel expense deduction. For more details on the definition of a tax home, see Pub. 463.

"I feel so very privileged that our government has bestowed upon me, the privilege of enforcing their wonderful insurance laws." "I did not seek out nor ask for this position." "This privilege has required me to spend many hours and thousands of dollars to become knowledgeable about how to do this enforcement for the next 5 years." "Therefore, costs for me to enforce the insurance laws must be passed on to the people whom the law is being enforced upon." I have this memorized to the letter. It stops the complainers in their tracks.

My clients don't read the letters. I use the filing instructions that are more bullet point, and I still use a highlighter on the things they actually need to do, such as mail ES payments.

I've settled the "guessing" and uncertainty for my clients in such things as contributions. Each year I take Post It notes and write various figures on them. I then stick them on my ceiling. At least this way, they have something to go by when they gaze up at the ceiling when asked for various amounts such as contributions! ????

You can't always let a client's problem become your problem. This client is a problem client and you may be better off without them. Why should you try to rewrite the past when they didn't worry about writing it correct in the first place. They probably didn't file tax returns because their tax guy didn't tell them too. LOL. I would look at their tax situation as it is and record/prepare it like it is. If you try to redo their facts you will just encourage them to keep doing things wrong since they think you will make it right. You should prepare based upon the facts and just the facts. This type of client needs to be told that it cost them to not have a professional tax preparer like you in those past years. If the client doesn't like it they can always get someone else and you would be better off.

As a 1065 K-1, there is a good chance that there is an inside basis different from the outside basis. The preparer of the 1065 would likely not be privy to the outside basis. In my unbiased professional opinion, having worked in this industry since 1984, there is no more complicated area of taxation than the partnership and K-1 area. I have several partnership clients - but if it were my choice they would all be corporations. At least I have a fighting chance in that arena. But there is always room for a good partnership. Keeps us on our toes.

I have received 3 calls this year asking for prices, but so far I have told them lets make an appointment to discuss the fees and I am still waiting for them to call me back

It's not so much the amount, Jack....It's the number of calls. I realize it's a fair question, but some days she simply falls off her chair, when it's an all day thing.

and this one

Eh, she just thinks her daughter-in-law and son know more than me. And I put up with that because two universities need my tuition dollars. That will not last forever. Then the daughter-in-law will get to feel my pain.

For almost 2 full years now, I have been studying at seminars for several different venues. Getting training from only one source will not get all the information. And, webinars, while a good way to learn, are very lame in the ability to interact, ask questions and the ability to interface with other professionals taking the course. I stand fully behind my statement. Add to that the fact that the IRS keeps making major changes mid-stream about all this crap...

Tell me, Judy, do you not consider the dollar value of the TIME spent on the studying? I'm pretty sure that's what Jack is adding to the cost of the materials he's invested in.

But to answer your actual question, yes, you can file the late W-2, and don't forget, farmers file a 943, rather than a 941.

Ah yes, that would be so much fun.

One would think the subsidy for your client would be calculated based on her income before marriage and again after the wedding. Nope. It doesn't work that way. She either calculates her credit using their married filing joint income or, with the alternative calculation, dividing their joint income in half and using that as her income for purposes of determining what her credit should have been (if any). From reading the form itself I believe you only "allocate" when someone who is not on the parents' return is on the policy (like a 25 year old child still on their insurance). So the parents do the allocating. I've had this situation twice, and if the joint income (or half of it) is above 400% poverty level they will have to pay the entire credit back. There is no cap for over 400%. Came across that tidbit with married clients who apparently lied on the application or didn't understand it and understated their income. At $150k annual income, they aren't entitled to a subsidy yet they got one of over $1300 a month. It all gets paid back.

I have one that sends emails & VMs every few days...got to my taxes yet? Until I do. BUT he brings me homemade pork adobo every year. With a side of rice and it's enough for 3 meals. Makes up for the emails!

The mileage from and to his home is the commute. Any jobs in-between are deductible mileage. There are always the ones who says everyone else does and you are not missing a thing.

As an NR...you never file joint and you never have dependents (a few exceptions...but not from Spain). You also have to itemize. So...if he amended it...he probably would owe. If he plans on getting a Green Card...they want to see past tax returns....so it could be problematic. Sometimes there are issues when the person leaves the US. He was supposed to file the 1040-NR in 2013...and if the IRS told him to amend 2013....they may follow-up.

Must have been what happened at my house. In a very few short years we went from two dogs to seven - and no, the first two did not breed. A long story for another day.

I/we don't use them. Less than 1% of clients read anything we print and send to them. Waste of time. I print the client info page showing amounts of refunds and what is owed. That is all the info anyone cares about.

i seem to have some sort of LOSER magnet outside my door.

If on Schedule A, it would be unreimbursed employee expense subject to 2%, wouldn't it? As he is paying for an expense as an employee, that might be correct. Does the insurance cover him outside of that employment contract? If so, then I would think a Sch. C would work. Surely others will chime in. Can't be the first time!

I tell them to go home and look it up. I guess I have beaten my clients into submission. I even got a 'yes ma'am!' When stressing the need for a mileage log. If they are making up numbers, they do good job of hiding the fact.

Sale of S-corp assets on an installment sale is not an installment sale that can be distributed to the shareholders without taxable gain to the S-corp. If distributed to the shareholder, it would require the S-corp to recognize the full gain and pass the taxable income to the shareholder in the year of disposition. An S-corp is not a partnership that can convert to personal and pass basis to shareholders tax free.

So TRUE. I WANT to be a Government employee