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Is it time for hugs?

Absolutely. When in doubt, hug it out.

Well, it turns out that no, they were not covered by health insurance January - June, they owe over $9k, and husband left me a voice mail Friday after hours: "To be on the safe side, let's get another extension." These two new clients are going to be two of my favorites in a few years. I just know it.

I am sorry for your clients, Catherine. My Florida clients are all on the Gulf side. The devastation that has happened up and down the coast is so sad. I am sure that there will be extended due dates for those in the damaged areas.

Glad you made it home safely.

Starring Ben Affleck, coming soon to a theater near you. He plays a financial consultant to an organized crime syndicate, not sure what era. I've always been fascinated by those organizations, as they didn't keep detailed books (less evidence), only who owes who what. Maybe a few composition or record books from my understanding. Very profitable when you don't have much overhead like taxes, insurance, advertising, and benefits. And I was hoping Affleck would be sporting a black and red cape with a big A with two underscored lines on his chest. I'm sure many of you are considered super heroes by some of your clients....we probably have some good material for a sequel. Casting and auditions begin after tax season 2017, get your portfolios ready.

I was so grateful that my sister, husband, daughter and family and son and family were able to evacuate from St. Simon's Island in time. They had to go to Montgomery AL to find a place, over 500 miles. They are back in Brunswick GA now but can't get to the island for another day or more. My sister could take her 2 dogs but not the several finches that she raises. She is so worried that the extra food and water she left may not have been enough or there may be damage to the house. At least they are all safe though it has been very costly for them. Scary....

I made it home last night from Orlando. I am never going to Florida again if there is ANY chance of a storm within 2,000 miles. We certainly didn't expect that we would have any effects that far inland. We got there late Monday night and by Wednesday afternoon were trying to find flights home. I am just glad that it wobbled and was ten miles farther offshore than they expected. At least we used our park tickets on Tuesday and Wednesday so they didn't go to waste. I was ready to drive home, but my husband vetoed it. He didn't want us driving in that traffic and it was not easy to find gas. A lot of gas stations were out of fuel until after the storm. I finally bit the bullet and bought tickets for myself and my son's girlfriend for Saturday AM, which were cancelled. I changed the flights twice and was so happy to see Omaha last night. My son can fly in any airline's jumpseat, but he had to request an additional day to report back to his hub, because they closed the airport Thursday afternoon until 10 Saturday AM. Going through a hurricane was not on my bucket list, but now I can say that I've seen hurricane force winds and rain. We were lucky, because our timeshare did not lose power, but it was very scary with the number of large trees on the property. It was great getting away for a bit, but I was a wreck for two days worrying about how I would get home and knowing how much work I had waiting for me.

They got 'em! Police in India arrested more than 70 people and more than 600 are being questioned and facing arrest. Here is just one report: http://abc27.com/2016/10/06/dozens-arrested-at-india-call-center-linked-to-irs-scam-calls/ Just today a client called and said the IRS has been calling her (she does have IRS issues), but she could hardly understand their thick accents in the message and every time she called back no one picked up. Hopefully that indicates the authorities have shut off their phones and with everyone in jail there is no way they can answer anyhow. I told her to read today's paper. Of course, I'm sure there are many more scams like this one still operating. And like with local drug gangs, when one gets taken out of commission others pop up to fill the void. Well, at least we and our clients will have a reprieve.

Thanks Judy! I'm going to prepare the 1120X

The 1139 is a request for a tentative (quick) refund and must be filed within one year instead of the longer 3 year period allowed for the 1120X, and with the 1139 the IRS is supposed to act on it within 90 days. The 1120X is a claim for refund (not tentative) and the tentative vs actual claim comes with differences related to the SOL. Rather than me explain it all out, I've included links to two articles that explain it better than any summary I'd give here. The articles are older and the carryback period allowed has changed, but the basic differences and effect of using one or the other of the forms hasn't. Article from The Tax Advisor (and also has a linked "exhibit" summarizing some of the differences in the last line of second section entitled "Background" : http://www.thetaxadviser.com/issues/2010/mar/nolcarrybackclaimscanunlockclosedstatuteoflimitationyears.html Article from The Free Library online: https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Practitioners+beware+-+use+of+Form+1045+or+1139+may+create+unexpected...-a018973034

Rules are on the market as available, or actually rented, the whole year, not that it has to be rented out a minimum of X days.

My Florida clients (six miles inland) were fine but their in-laws in NC are out of power. And the wife's dad (in NC) passed away just a day or two before the storm hit. So they are heading north to the no-power area to the ONE room in the ONE hotel that still had space, to help the family and try to arrange a funeral. At least the f-i-l did not die due to the storm. But good grief, NOT an easy time for them. They still owe me some tax docs and called while packing the car for NC to say they'll overnight them. I told them "family first!" and we'll just file the return late if need be. They typically get a refund anyway.

I agree. BTW Elrod, you've got the job for special effects and graphics for our epic tale.

It's about time they made a movie depicting the best of our commerce...

Not exactly sure of the other method, but try stopping each service, then starting each service instead of just restart. Sometimes restart doesn't work for me but stop and start does. Good luck.

Six hours are allowed for teaching. https://www.caltax.com/spidellweb/public/webinars/self-study-materials/2014Circular230EthicsONLINE.pdf page 11 of the pdf; numbered page - 7

Yes, I get this often and after re starting services it works fine. You can go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Services > then restart the service for ATX. I usually do 2013-2015. There is another method but this is what I have been doing since 2013.

was it available for rent all year and they just couldn't find a tenant? If so and if they are renting or trying to rent it in 2016 then yes.

You have been a fixture in the Sacramento area for a long time. Are you going to keep your practice or sell and start over? Or just keep your clients and do the returns remotely? None of my business, but I thought you had a pretty good size practice and I am surprised to see you moving. Tom Newark

Mine have stopped also.

This is very good news. Based on the number of persons involved and the amount of money being collected, this was a large scale operation. Other operations that have been shut down involved a handful of people. There are surely others still out there, but for the meantime, my "IRS" calls have stopped.

I'm glad to see this, but I view the news with a mixture of positive and negative feelings. It's probably more a matter of optics than substance. The US government has probably been leaning on the Indian government to do something about this, since so many of the scammers have identifiable accents. So the Indian government "locates" a site (which was probably already well-known to them), conducts a raid, does a few perp walks, and grabs some headlines. Problem solved (at least the public relations part of it). This operation is probably a drop in the bucket and nothing will really change with respect to the ongoing scams. But the government officials can claim they are cracking down and everybody feels better about it.

Yes! Your post brought back memories of an audit long ago where the client made his memo-area notations in Hebrew on all of his donation checks. That auditor asked for interpretation of a few he randomly selected and then accepted the entire batch.

in Judaism, the number 18 [chai] is lucky so many people make contributions in multiples of 18,180,1800 and many will use 18 in the amount, ie 218, 518, etc. I once had an audit and the agent [not Jewish] didn't want to accept the cancelled checks saying that they must have been for tickets or something run through the temple. [pre 250 letter requirement days]. I asked him how long he has been auditing here on the North Shore of Nassau County and he said 1 week. I laughed and explained it to him. Months later he called me to thank him for the education and how all he sees are donation such as I listed above. I guess not many Jews from where he came from, somewhere down south.

Great news. I've been getting a lot of these lately where they come in a series of two calls. One a man another a woman sounding a little robo like. I love their closing, "have a nice day". I hope they do too, making license plates and eating instant potatoes.

Lawd have mercy! I wonder if I ever dare post again. I am reasonably sure Jack is technically correct but I have no fear I will be looking at any penalty nor for that matter that my old friend will trigger an audit of his return. A former taxman in our area used to stuff his farm returns with everything but the kitchen sink. A farm rental return of his I received had about $600 in rent income and some $6,000 in deductions in that year as an example. He practiced in this manner for about forty years until his death and as far as I know triggered few audits. Was this right? Of course not. But if my old friend wants to pay more tax than he need pay that is his decision and I'll abide by his wishes even though I did tell him he was overpaying.

You may be right. When I asked her if there were assets in her farm Maintenance and Repair, she said, "Yes, $2,000 for bathroom remodeling."