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How silly! We all know that it is the barber's brother-in-law who is the FINAL authority on all matters of tax law.

My experience as well. There has been more eye rolling in this office about ex-IRS preparers than anything. Any. Thing. Ever. The last one I heard was, "My old preparer [deceased, God rest his soul, but might be burning in hell, just saying] would always make an arithmetic error first thing. That way, the return would get kicked out. The arithmetic error would be fixed: Oh, haha, it's just an arithmetic error... And then everything would sail right through. He was so great, used to work for IRS, you know." Me: Yes. Yes, I know. He: Do you have something in your eye ...

Or a hug in your heart?

Every new client that I have picked up (or declined after they wouldn't change their ways) that has come from an ex-IRS employee-turned tax preparer has had totally bogus deductions on their returns. It is mind blowing. Most of the returns were marked self-prepared. The last guy that came in had not filed for 6 years because the guy died. I guess he was trying to find another old agent, because he says that one never charged him. He received a very large fee from me.

Amazing. I've had clients who tell my they know someone who works at IRS or who retired from IRS and this person says they can do this or that. As if these IRS personnel know all and are the final authority.

I bought the DVDs and did a few OIC - all were accepted. With the online programs, it's relatively simple. One lady went from owing well over $70k to about $10k - still refused to pay even though the IRS had conditionally accepted. My problem with OIC is I don't tend to like the clients. Lady who didn't pay - several years later wanted to try it again and kept complaining I wasn't working quickly enough on it. Oddly kept ignoring payment of my retainer before I'd begin working.

Either that or she was expecting professional courtesy if audited. Mind boggling seeing the scope and amounts of the deductions. This can relate back to the Italian grandmother tribunal and common sense theories we discussed. They are going to get big hugs and trips to the Leavenworth backyard courtesy of Uncle Sam.

From the "Britain's Got Talent" show. The link is to Big Geek Daddy; he posts all manner of interesting things. Another Kind of Blue

Get both of them in your office at the same time. Tell them both: "The fiduciary controls the cash, not me..." Then explain what happened. Rich

Refer him to his brother. Do NOT talk to him about the return. Circular 230 violations abound if you do.

I had an accountant before I got into the tax business who was ex IRS CID and thought he knew all of what he could get away with. He padded expenses on numerous returns for several years until a couple of his clients got audited. This led to the IRS to raid his office, ski masks on, guns drawn and hauling off all his records. He and an associate got million dollar fines and 18 months jail sentences. None of the clients were charged.

I saw this a week or two ago. And they didn't even know (or follow) the 'hogs get slaughtered' rule of aggressive tax prep. Maybe they figured they'd never be audited?

A former Tax Court judge has been indicted for tax evasion. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-united-states-tax-court-judge-and-husband-indicted-conspiracy-commit-tax-evasion-and What amazes me is how she and her husband could even think of deducting such expenses on their Sch C, Pilates lessons, Wine club fees, music lessons, and more. Then they tried to cover it up for the audit. You can't make this stuff up, no one would believe anyone could be so stupid.

Got an email last week that said my online renewal is ready. Roughly 5% increase for Max from 1268.10 to 1331.10. Quote page had an error on it that added 69 extra to the total. Logged out and back in and total was correct. You can add/subtract items from your quote. Seems like a step in the right direction to me, since I can now just renew online without having to email/call my rep.

I'm using an SSD as my main drive and plan to convert all my computers to SSDs this summer/fall. I love it. It made my computer feel like a new computer. Fast boot and fast running many programs and windows utilities.

I received this video link in my email yesterday and it discusses some of the various IRS scams that are going around right now, even one I hadn't heard of yet. only 20 minutes long. http://www.astps.org/irs-scams/?inf_contact_key=0a8187a3fb1b901da0f74ca7b671f1694caa3637d881123634e778b7fc1f8218 If you don't trust links, you should be able to find it on astps.org.

I would ask my client if I could answer brother's questions. In fact, brother most likely has tried to get answers from your client, and we all know he can't explain it like you can. Your client may have told brother to call you, who knows? I would be happy to answer questions about a return I prepared, as I'm sure you are, Terry. I would also ask client if you can give a copy of the Form 1041 to brother. That way, brother's preparer can look it over. I would want to know where the info on my K-1 came from, too. Possibly just having a copy of the Form 1041 would remedy the whole situation. Regardless, I'd talk to client first and get a feel for whether there is discord here, or just a simple desire to understand something that affects my tax return.

When you have a successful business, competitors will spring up to try and take a bite out of it. Two of them, Jackson-Hewitt and Liberty were both founded by an ex HRB exec, John Hewitt. There are also the do-it-yourselfers that have also taken a bite as well as non-profit volunteers and the IRS itself who will now assist with returns up to what? $60K, or so. The report says that the loss was mostly in the early part of the season with most of the decline coming in 1040EZ and EITC returns. A large part of this may be due to Liberty's spanish speaking offices "Siempre" and to the demise of the instant refund programs. All companies eventually reach a peak and then decline and level off at some point. What is so remarkable about HRB is that it took so long for it to happen to them, over 60 years, but that is probably due to the lack of any meaningful competition for so long. Some of the layoffs in recent years may be due to overstaffing that happens when you are successful.

Heard thru the grapevine that someone renewed for less than $70 over last year's Max price (I believe he's reliable), FYI. Go get 'em.

I've had a few of those over the years too, but now I have a few people (mostly non-clients) coming by to ask for a blank 1099 or W-2 (I order a few from IRS to give away). Asked if they want a 1096 transmittal to go with it they almost invariably say "No thanks, I don't need that." I'm assuming they either don't know/care what should be done or that they just want to hand somebody an official piece of paper to satisfy them. In any case I'd bet that IRS/SSA never sees the red sheet.

I have a client who every year brings me the copies of his 1099MISC--including the red copy. Hmm...to report or not report? (I do, of course.)

Thank you. I think most of the above are pretty good suggestions to work around the problem. The wild card, as you say, in these cases is the clerk of whom you have no idea what they actually sent. I once had one that wrote "AMENDED" at the top of a 1099-MISC (without checking the "CORRECTED" box) and the client was never billed. However, that was many years ago and I'm guessing a good agent realized what she meant and therefore cancelled the first submission -- can't speak for the CSR's nowadays. The agonizing thing about these, of course, is that you generally have to wait until summer of the next year before a notice is sent. The other case was a HUD agency who issued an incorrect 1099 money amount. The clerk said she didn't know how to fix it; I offered to either show her how or to do it for her but she refused saying "It has to be done or authorized by a HUD official." And that was that - they did nothing. But it was also a non-event since the landlord had enough rent income listed to cover the HUD payments and more; back then they didn't send a notice if your TOTAL rent income was sufficient. She never got a CP letter. The upshot of it was that in the process I discovered this little booklet that neatly covers the correction methods. The title is "General Instructions for Certain Information Returns" (type that into Google and an IRS PFD will come up -- I tried to make a link of it below, but I don't know how and can't get it to work). Anyway, Google those words and take a look at page eleven: There are two types of error corrections. Method #1 is for money amounts and only requires ONE form. Type in the new money and check the "CORRECTED" box; this cancels the old 1099 money and substitutes the new money amount. Method #2 is for names and ID/SS numbers and requires TWO forms. On the first 1099 you type all the text information just as was originally and mistakenly done, but you enter a ZERO on the money amounts. Then check the "CORRECTED" box. This will cause the old form to no longer have any effect. Next, you simply type up a new 1099 just as if you were doing it correctly for the first time (DO NOT check the "CORRECTED" box). (Theoretically this all works out ). https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1099gi.pdf

Letter 12C is a request for additional information after a return has been received. It is not specific to any form. The address is a legitimate IRS address. There is no PO Box as the IRS has the entire 73301 zip code. This is the case with all of their 15 or so regional offices. Seattle, Fresno, KC, Phila, Cinci, etc.

IT-360.1 OLTPRO will do it. It works the same way in Drake.

I've never used mailing slips for anything with any software I've ever used. I don't see the point. We use usps.com priority mail and print label and pay for the postage in one step. The envelopes are free too! Added benefit: address gets verified. Edit: The only con is you can't just use first class. But I want a tracking service anyway, when I mail something to a client.

Haven't encountered it but I would delete if they sent me attachments without previous contact. The idea of having massive numbers of emails in my in-box - mind blown. Little too compulsive to allow that. Bothers me when I have 2-3 that aren't categorized properly.