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For our amusement today; try the caption three times fast!

Many months ago I bought a ticket to see Brian Wilson in concert, even though the show was on 10/14 and in S. Lake Tahoe, a good 2 hour drive. I thought, I'll get everything done early. Oh yeah, I was optimistic! Then it turned out to be a drive in a torrential rainstorm up the mountains, so I stayed up there. Nice rooms at Harrahs Lake Tahoe. . I didn't think about the returns still on my desk at all. About 30 for which I've been waiting on this or that piece of information, some of them for months. In the case of one guy, his 1095-As for both 2015 and 2014. then there's the ones I've finished but they won't either pick them up or send back the 8879s. 4 of those. I know where Catherine is; I'm there too. I'm not chasing after anyone. I have 4 returns I'm still working on, one in the hopper to be picked up tomorrow and 1 amendment and a couple back returns I was contracted to do, that I'll finish up on Tuesday. That's it. Then I'm moving. Anyone else that sends in that last bit of stuff will be done next month or so. Retiring is starting to look appealing.

This ship is everywhere

Just look at this ship.

What piece of ship

I just stole the wording from your sign for my FB page.

Among the many things I like about this forum, I rate "learning something new" at the top of the list. Sometimes I think we should be able to count participation here as CE. I never knew that a mlssed extension date essentially voided the extension, but I'm sure it will be useful information at some point in the future. Thanks Sara

Knee deep in a shipload.

Like a lot that we hear from so many, just full of ship.

Or just give him a Rita hug and prepare the estate return, instead.

How about "since taxpayer mileage 'log' was not creative enough can you let him slide? He had good intentions. If you concentrate, you can smell those good intentions, come on now..."

Thanks for asking! Yes, they all survived albeit with dirty water and very messy cages. My sister said they were quite traumatized but settled down quickly. The trees in the yard lost some branches but seemingly there was no damage to the house itself - thankfully. I am encouraging her to think about moving more inland but doubt that will happen.

Note that the 4838 is a request or application for an automatic extension. It's not a given. From the instructions themselves: "You don’t have to explain why you’re asking for the extension. We’ll contact you only if your request is denied." If you don't file by the extension deadline, your request is denied and failure to file penalties are assessed back to April 15. Saw it happen with several clients. From the IRM: " In the case of an individual, if tax shown on the return is paid after the extended return due date (e.g., with a late filed return), reasonable cause must be shown for the period after the extended due date. If the taxpayer is unable to show that the late payment was due to reasonable cause, the penalty for paying late must be computed from the original return due date, even if 90% of the tax was paid on time and the balance was paid with the late filed return.... The extended due date is used to determine the number of months (if any) that the return and payment are late for the purpose of computing the penalties for filing and paying late. However, the original return due date is used to determine the amount subject to the late filing penalty if the return is not filed by the extended due date. See IRM 20.1.2.2.7.2." Guess we'll have to get creative with conjuring up "reasonable cause" excuses. Can anyone offer better wording for lazy, disorganized, better things to do, just don't care?

Ship happens

My client brought in a ship ton of notices from TN Dept of Revenue today. Could not happen at a more shippy time. Thanks for bringing all this ship today, client.

I set a deadline of September 15th, years ago, and that deadline goes out by email to everyone still uncompleted as of June 1st, and again on August 1st. STILL we get people missing it. Heck, I have a couple of folks who still owe me 2014 information - and one lady who owes me every year starting with 2012! She has lost a couple of refunds for sure, yet she did send her 2015 info (got the last bits Friday) and as has not been the case before - she owes. Oh, well. I was in here over the weekend - but working on slides for a CPE presentation on stock options I'm giving in January as part of the MaSEA annual tax update. I did, while I was here *anyway*, send out a couple of signature forms to folks who got me the last tidbits. One case was the ssn for a new dependent, another was bank info for direct debit for payments. Gee, funny - I don't have any of those signature pages back yet today. I am *not* going to sweat it, and I am going to leave at 5PM today no matter what.

Sara: Are you sure about that FTF penalty being calculated back to Apr 15? I don't recall running into this before, but I think the 5% per month will begin on Oct 18, provided a valid extension was filed to begin with.

My favorite ship to cruise on......

Well the many once a year people that procrastinate are not the ones I care about. Almost all of our returns have multiple k-1's in them so we are stuck till 9/15 to do them. For a firm our size we put out about 1800 returns and most of them are multistates, multiple sch E's and lately a lot of our clients are in tic's to unlike k-1's, we don't even receive the info till now when the tic's accountant works on it. We bought out a 2 man firm a while back and they do a lot of $300 returns, our core starts at $1000 or they are part of a business client. We have been trying since august to hire 2 people, a 3-5 year person and a junior. There is no one out there even sending in resume's. If we go into tax season this short handed then we will have a revolt from our staff. Gearing up for the new January deadlines, we added a full time bookkeeper and 2 part timers to get all of our write-ups done by jan 15th. As for the new March deadlines, no way, every business return is going on extension [especially 1065's with no money due] March 1st. Then we can get them done as we get them done. April should now be a snap and we will spread our work load out over may-august for everthing we would have normally done march and april. These new deadlines are going to make us all drastically change our work flow practices.

I don't even try or worry about it. 9 months is enough time for ANYONE to gather and forward tax information. Penalty? TOO BAD SO SAD! (wait till you see MY bill!)

(Journal Of Accountancy) - The IRS notified tax practitioners and taxpayers who use many IRS e-services that it is strengthening the authentication process for identifying users and that the new, more stringent procedures will require existing users to re-register. http://www.journalofaccountancy.com/news/2016/sep/irs-services-authentication-procedures-201615248.html

The IRS has announced that this changeover has been delayed due to unspecified problems for an unknown period of time. After all how can you know the unknowable ?

I got an email about that and have not even had a chance to read it. I'll add the article to my list of things to read, hopefully before any pertinent deadline!

Michaelmars, you really were going to give it your all so close to the deadline--fully staffed, ready to roll--but the stars were against you. Maybe it's time to rethink your dedication to your clients, who when you think about it aren't that deserving of your Herculean effort on their behalf. I believe I'm starting to feel like Catherine. While I bend over backwards to complete as many April 15 returns as I can, even for those who deposit their disorganized messes with us on April 10, I am starting to feel differently about Oct 17 stragglers. It's not like we didn't contact them multiple times to get their act together, or call them repeatedly when they only brought in half the needed info this week. I caught myself getting frantic about the penalties they'll face, until I realized that here I am caring more about their tax obligations than they do. Not good. I worked all day today. Completed a $2k plus return, looked up basis for stocks purchased decades ago on another and checked everything so it's ready to go when those last two tax docs come in on Monday (maybe), and stopped caring about the others. One has a kid in college who will have his financial aid rescinded if parents don't file on Oct 17. Another already owes a zillion dollars and will get hit with a massive failure to file penalty (which the IRS calculates back to April 15 when the return isn't filed by the extension deadline). Even if she brings in the volumes of needed data at 8AM Monday it won't get finished. Too bad, it's not like we didn't try. The others I intend to bill for the work already done. I have 5-10 hours into some returns, and I don't intend to wait until they're finished, if ever, to get paid. Bills go out this week. Next year, set a deadline of Oct 1 and don't promise anything to those who show up after that date. Don't schedule weekend hours to service clients who have been enjoying their weekends for six months and finally woke up.

That sucks! I guess I won't complain about the five large ones that I have left. This is one of the times that I am really glad that I work at home. Lots of late nights and I can watch the football game in the other room!

That really stinks! It's bad enough that we're all working on a Saturday, but crashing servers and wasted staff time is no good.

Mine too. And, I don't use ATX anymore. Last working interests I had, outside of PTPs, were a decade ago at H&R Block Premium on their proprietary software. But, our posts will keep your thread up top...

All our oil and gas clients are in PTPs, which have their own set of nightmare rules.

Thanks, Elrod. Also, and sorta related, if you become an EA (and maybe if you renew, I don't know) you need to login to your PTIN account and update your credentials.