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The IRS was not kidding when they said they are going do a better job with EIC refund or in general, TP called me today, I received a letter from the IRS letting me know they are not going to release my refund until I file my 2013 tax return. My response was yes, what's wrong with that

I still think the medical travel provided by the daughter is the most likely answer, and accounts for all the money. You can't have medical travel without a car. The math works like this: Amount received. $86,000 Less med exp: (26,000) Sub-total: 60,000 Less one car: (60,000) Net received: - 0 -

Do you wonder if the guy coming back with $7,000 in business expenses for $4,000 in income helped them decide he wasn't in business? Asking for a friend.

Crying. And THAT'S how we do math around here! Give me my roses while I'm here. (And my inheritance.) The principal went toward meals and incidentals. (Clothes and vacations.) (Steven, don't get offended at us, we're just playing.)

I charge per hour with a 1 hour minimum but the time it takes can be reflective on many issues (like what the previous preparer charged). Charging by the form makes no sense to me since even a schedule C or E can be 5 minutes or 4 hours. I have clients who hand me a single Quickbooks print out and want a 1065 generated on a single rental property. It might be $200 normally but since they hand me 8 of them at one time, I charge $130 each and they take <30 minutes each. I'd suspect I'm in the $675 range like Rich but I couldn't really tell. Had a prospective client who had 30 rental properties and EVERYTHING was run through paper books. I told him $45 per property on his Schedule E and he about fell over dead. He found a EA who would do it for $600 and I about fell over dead.

Quartic surfaces are super-cool but definitely weird (and some of the "simpler" ones look a whole lot like the descriptions of sub-atomic orbitals). A few decades ago I *might* have been able to at least tackle the equations that define them. So I side-stepped your entire statement by running for cover to the Planck limit, where all lengths lose locality. That's how: by having a brain full of only loosely-related nerdly trivia.

We need to get Betty Sue and Jerome back on the board. They are real smart and could give us the answer lickity split. Tom Newark, CA

I've suffered enough because the fee for the 1120S was $830 when I've been charging only $375. I'm going full pop on the 1040 with a rental, Sch C, ACA subsidy repayment, Sch D, loss limitations on Sch E2. Film at eleven....

I also put my daughters to work and Watch TV. We watch TV for 30 minutes while Alex Trebek is on air. My High School Senior gets a quarter for each correct response while my 2nd grader gets a whole dollar for each correct response. 2nd grader has the first chance to talk and my senior daughter goes next and have to be before the TV participants or Alex say the correct answer. I hope I am not violating any labor laws and of course they are NOT in payroll. I wonder if my daughters can open Roth IRAS with that money? Going back to the question at hand. You should deal with the returns when you have the 1099-R at hand and file if needed. Technically the children don't need to file but maybe you will file their returns just for matching.

Yes, you have suffered long enough, gone above and beyond for this client (I know the type, have one of my own). But you can't let him get you down and I would make this negative into a positive for you. Going full pop on the 1040 is a good start. Here's what I do. Find a way to add on an extra $100 to the bill. Donate it to Best Friends Animal Rescue. Feel good about yourself. Next year, your charitable deduction makes you feel good again. It's win, win for you...and the animals.

I dunno - I never even read the details; just remembered it from an old seminar and the only thing that rang a bell was the court deciding it's NOT subject to SE. Probably doesn't make much difference anyway though 'cause everybody's got a different outlook and IRS is not (I think) required to follow a TC memo. They'd probably fight this stuff from trench to trench if the money was compelling. Oh...okay, yeah; I had forgotten all about those Planck length-losing localities. Now I've got it. Thanx. You guys have got guts; somebody would have to pull a gun to make me suggest confronting my sis-in-law with an SS-8....

Yes, there had to be principal in there, for sure, but it's not uncommon for there to be much more interest than principal. I just looked up a $5,000 series EE bond issued 10/1986. It would have been purchased for $2,500 and the accumulated interest would be $9,032 when it matured 10/2016. So, yeah daughter had more than $60,000 left after paying the medical expenses. For sure.

That's just good parenting, Catherine and Pacun. Personal family expenses, incentives, gifts. Years ago my son did some counselor-in-training work with his former summer camp, having been told no tax documents. A 1099-MISC showed up. We opened a Roth IRA for him immediately. Years later, he's made use of it as they work on the bakery, Hancock NY: http://www.thebakeryhancockny.com/online_orders/default.html Order his wife's macaroons; they travel well.

"Unaffordable" is determined using the Affordability Worksheet that is part of the form 8965. If your client meets that test, code A would apply to this situation, and that code does not require any sort of exemption request from any Marketplace. I'm assuming that ATX has the worksheet and generates the "A" code if applicable information is entered.

Thanks everyone. I think I will do as Judy suggested. The transcript will show who his employers were doing the year and my son can write to them ask for another copy. I was going to send a request to the IRS for a copy of the return including W2s and 1099s which costs $50.00, but after rereading the instructions, it appears that a return has to be filed first.

Maybe the daughter drove her mom to and from the doctor a lot during the year. That's the ONLY thing I can possibly think of which would require $86,000 to cover $26,000 of medical expenses.

Good point, @Lion EA, and one I had not considered. It is possible for kids to work younger than teens (think of child models, for example) but I have never looked at the rules. When my girls were little and they worked for me, I paid them out of pocket and did not attempt payroll. They got $1 for each 1/2" of paper stacked for shredding, and I would put the shredder in the living room and they would feed it during commercial breaks while they were watching their favorite shows (they each got one 1/2 hour show a day to watch, and were allowed to watch their sister's show as well).

According to their instruction book for the WV state income tax, non-residents do not pay tax on gambling winnings except the lottery. So I think they will only pay Federal and VA tax on their winnings.

OK, I understand about VA's law. Its WV that I am concerned about. I read on page 16 of their book that west Virginia source income of a non resident does not include gambling winnings except certain lotteries. Based on this I think maybe TP does not owe tax on the slot machine winnings that they have. Would this be a safe assumption?

Not the question you asked, but have the parents check on working requirements for minors before they put their kids on payroll. In CT, kids get their working papers from their high school counselor. Different ages for different occupations, but I think 16 for office work, older for restaurants, labor, more accident-prone jobs.

http://www.bradfordtaxinstitute.com/Endnotes/TC_Memo_1992-727.pdf Unless it's an amount they can't stand, I'll generally go with the C-EZ since attempting to get anybody to change a 1099 or issue a W-2 instead is on the order of trying to achieve world peace. But here's something from "way back in the nineties" (John A. Batok, Tax Court Memo, 1992-727) that shores up your position. And, after all, would I dare argue with the enlightened entity who's familiar with "the singularities of X"? Certainly not! And I would've bet a hundred bucks nobody could answer that dang thing I stole from a mathematics site. How'd you do it ?

Yes, of course if you owe you're required to file. Has nothing to do with whether he is required to file a federal return. Or whether he does file a federal return. Do taxes. Make money. I stole that saying, but it's a nice saying.

Don't mean to be insensitive either, but kids and other relatives don't consult us about money that belongs to someone else. Looks like daughter made provisions for a $60,000 cushion for taxes.

Don't mean to be insensitive but another case of folks making decisions and acting on them without consulting their tax advisor or accountant.

I would charge him $50

Ryan, be careful here with calculating a loss. Were you the preparer back in 2008 to know that the depreciable basis placed in service was the original cost after breaking out the land, or could it be that the FMV at the time of conversion to rental was less than original cost? I'm asking because that 2008 time period was when the housing market had significant declines in value, and there might be other reasons for that smaller amount being used for depreciation. When that happens and the property is subsequently sold, if that sale results in a loss using the full basis, you can't use the part of the loss attributable to the decline in value during the period it was used as a personal residence prior to conversion to rental status because a loss on a personal residence is never deductible. This is an excellent and slightly older article from The Tax Advisor that you might want to review before finalizing that return, and even though it is an older article, the rules haven't changed. Pay particular attention to the caution at around the 4th or 5th paragraph, and the detailed discussion of calculating the gain or loss on these converted properties. It also contains the reg. references to the pertinent sections that apply to this type of situation. http://www.thetaxadviser.com/issues/2008/jul/convertingaresidencetorentalproperty.html