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Terry, You are looking at that incorrectly.... Do NOT try to prove who you are NOT --- have the issuer PROVE who they gave the card/account/whatever to. If they can not prove it was you (signatures, ID required at issue, etc.), then they must remove it from your file AND do a written notification to any persons/entities/etc. who they gave bad information to. To often people "roll-over" when the onus is really on the other party. Otherwise, "they" are actually violating the different credit reporting rules and consumer protection laws. If curious, do a Google or Bing check on credit laws (treat it as if you were "collecting" liens or debts for yourself). There are a myriad of restrictions to avoid. Make the credit bureaus "play by the rules" too -- use them to your advantage. Apologies -- I do not mean to sound as if telling you what to do (Spouse I sound like that a lot) and I just reread and see the point. Just meant as hopefully a different guidance possibility.

That's because they have to do a quick change when they lure someone into the office. It's tough handling the dual role of Lady Liberty AND your tax pro simultaneously.

Thanks everyone for the replies. I have completed the 14039 and need to get back into e-services to file as Catherine says. As I said, I filed the extension to see if a return had already been filed. I guess I was hoping for something positive out of filing the extension. I have already contacted the credit bureaus and put all the fraud alerts possible. My wife and I are discussing the credit freeze. I'm just worried that I may get stuck with this for seven years. It would make perfect logical sense to look at my history and see that every account reported for the last how many years has the same status which is paid as agreed/never late. Then all of a sudden one account out of character. I guess anyone with excellent credit can have a financial fall out. But too many current satisfactory and one bad egg???? The waiting is what is nerve racking. This was reported on my credit in a manner of minutes but will take up to 60 days to be removed if it is actually proven as fraud.

Wow, Terry, I'm really sorry you had this happen, and at the worst time too! You've already received excellent advice here to not rely on that extension and definitely do contact the IRS. Also consider putting a freeze on your credit with all of the credit bureaus. It may be inconvenient if you do need to borrow, but it will lock down your credit so that no more accounts can be opened in your name, and it doesn't affect your credit score.

I want a slow week........

We too have had clients whose extensions were efiled (NOT mailed) and accepted and then their final returns were rejected because of identity theft. I thought that odd because thieves usually file early in the season and our extensions were filed around April 15. Last year we had two clients whose iphones stopped working, only to find out crooks had purchased new ones on their accounts and had gotten new numbers. Both filed identity theft affidavits with IRS and were issued IP PINs. When one of those clients went to the phone store to inquire, the people there knew exactly what had happened and re-activated their phones. Apparently they had lots of experience with this problem. Hats off to the new Security Summit, where IRS and state tax depts and others are working together on ID theft issues. Recently there was some new email scam that appeared to be from professional boards but was really a phishing attempt. In the past two days I was alerted to it by IRS, my state, and the local EA chapter. Good job, Security Summit members.

Nobody in for the first three days and stragglers dropping in yesterday and today (Friday). But that's okay, I kinda needed to get caught up and organized a bit. The big-box guys down the street are looking thin and pale - they're closing up early and I can see 'em hanging out the front door looking to lasso any scarce/stray/rare short-former who strolls by. They don't have any large cases to speak of. Ironic in a way; they just killed it a few years ago gouging the Rapid-Refund W-2 crowd with $400 short form fees for same-day checks. Now turnaround's quick, Turbo Tax is cheap, and every man-jack or his girl friend has a computer (they may not be so hot at readin' and 'ritin but they savvy "This is your refund!")

... and making them searchable really saves a lot of time. You can search for the word foreign or a certain amount or investment name or account number... helps prevent omissions too.

I don't have anything useful to add, Terry, but I just wanted to let you know that I'm really sorry this happened to you.

You copy paste most of this as a start. https://www.irs.gov/uac/business-or-hobby-answer-has-implications-for-deductions

Now that you mention the big box guys, I have noticed the costumed Statue of Liberties from Liberty Tax with dress pants sticking out the bottom of their gowns. That's a little demeaning for our kind.

Yeah, I've had that. You just have to blow it off - close the program, open back up and it's gone. No idea what the hell it's all about. ATX is a strange bird, but...a good one.

It depends on the facts and circumstances. The courts have based decisions on how active the landlord is in managing the property., For example in DURBIN, the land was farmed by sharecropper but court found landlord exercised no personal control or management of the farm land. Therefore held land was not used in trade or business so ruled it was a capital loss. On the other hand, in GOOD, court found landlord was active in management of property leased to shareholder and therefore used in a trade or business. In that case an ordinary loss was allowed.

I also thought these people where thugs, but actually it's the creditor, they find any fool that has the name of the debtor and they gladly remove everything once you prove you are not the debtor.

@Terry D where they using your SS#? I have a common name and creditors put all the MAS in my area under my credit report, they never had access to my SS#, but it did mess up my credit but was able to resolve it after 2-3 months. Call all three credit bureaus and it should be resolved.

I feel your pain Terry. 2 months ago, I got a letter from a collection agency stating that I owed ATT more than $4K. I called ATT and they told me that they got my social and they requested phones and lines. Once they didn't pay, they took me to collection. They solved that issue but then about a month ago, someone in Arizona (I am in DC) tried to charge something to my Amex, but they didn't charge anything. I check my credit cards and bank everyday and in this case, I called Amex and they cancelled my card and issued me a new one. I became a citizen 10 years ago and I changed my name. They are using my previous name and my social security number. Ironically, ATT didn't share any information with me and I wonder if I could help with the investigation to see if somehow a friend or relative to access to my SS#. Identity theft is not a joke, so now I enter every W-2 identification code when available and I enter the driver's license number even though my states (DC, MD and VA) don't require it. That is my contribution to help fight identity theft. I forgot to mention that I checked my three credit reports and the thieves tried ATT, T Mobile and Verizon and I guess the last two companies smelled a rat and didn't approve the accounts. That happened in Jun 2016.

if it weren't for the fact that it skewed the mort int and re tax deductions, you might could attribute it to the the philosophy of it being easier to just put it in than to explain why you didn't. the preparer had to do the math to see if it saved any... might as well leave it in. How many of us always put the tax prep fee on line 22 even though for most people it has no tax savings. heaven forbid we leave off the safe deposit box. THEN You get the call: "You left off my safety deposit box for $25". (That is where they keep the quick claim deeds and the physical year reports)

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No, PDF. But I have PDF software (Nuance Standard) that will make any PDF searchable. I use it a lot on wills, articles of organization, and other documents I receive as a PDF. My scanner can also scan OCR but the PDF software does it faster and better. The scanner doesn't recognize spaces as characters, so if you copy/paste a line all the words run together.

Good article but, I don't think this fits my case. We have never received anything from any debt collectors, never knew the card existed, and have never seen a statement or anything. This cc was used, never paid and shut down by synchrony. I am wondering about the integrity of their employees. Wells Fargo had issues with employees creating fake or fraudulent accounts to meet company required quotas. From FDNY's post, it appears this is nothing new to Walmart.

haven't had that error all year until the last week or so. wondered if we needed an update.

I look up the filing requirements per state, and how much tax was withheld on client's behalf. If filing threshold is met, we file. If refund of overpaid tax sufficient to pay my fee, we file. If tax owed is more than a couple of bucks, we file.

See this article http://articles.latimes.com/2010/dec/19/business/la-fi-perfin-20101219

In my case there where two individuals that had similar name like me, I was able to prove to experian that I did to live at XYZ, I had to send a copy of my SS# and if you check your experian report you could see the different SS# and addresses that are tied to your account. At first I thought it was identty theft, but it's those damm collections agencies who are causing all these problems, hoping it's a case of mistaken identity in your case, good luck.

This only happens when I have too much crap starting up automatically and I open the program as soon as I can (while the computer is still booting up). I normally close it and wait a minute to let the crap stop using my computer resources and then it opens correctly.

The return will have to be paper filed. Is there an ex-spouse that might have claimed the son's exemption? If you can't figure out who claimed the exemption, there is also the possibility that it could be a case of identity theft of the son's SSN.

Only one credit card was issued. I am assuming they had to use my SS# and other information to get the card. The funny thing is, they used a different address. This was a Walmart CC through Synchrony Bank. I do have a Walmart CC through Synchrony bank that was issued a few years ago that is in excellent standing. When I spoke to the Walmart CC fraud department, they couldn't answer all of my questions just that a different address had been used. I did tell them I thought they had a very sloppy CC processing procedure and asked why they would issue me a card when I already had one. Again, no answers. I have to wait for their fraud department to finish conducting their investigation. Hopefully I will know then. To further substantiate my SS# was used, they located the fraudulent account under my number.

Extension means nothing. If you don't send a check they are put in a box and they are opened only if you owe taxes when you file in September. When mail was the king, there was one address for extensions with checks and another for extensions by itself, meaning that they don't process those things, the IRS just cashes the check.

I am so sorry. I found out from experience that an acceptance of an efiled extension does not stop always mean that another return has not been filed or might be filed. I had a client with an extension accepted, but when we filed the return, the IRS said that one had been filed in February with the wife's SS#. I don't know how that is even possible.

Sorry to hear about your issues Terry. That really stinks. Good luck sorting everything out. I hope it goes as smoothly as it can go for you.

Programming wise, an unexpected error (reported by Windows), means something has happened which the application itself is not designed to handle. For instance, a memory corruption. The message is actually quite accurate... Ideally, the application "hooks" all such errors and inserts its own error handling routine. There can be cases where some outside influence prevents the application from hooking and trapping all errors. Usually these errors are caused by more than one program trying to use the same memory address (which should never happen unless one program has hard coded an address or does not handle missing items).

But when you DO want something, like a depreciation schedule, for example, it is NOWHERE!

Most likely this old lady doesn't like to live in the US and that's why she is enjoying the tropical weather of Guyana. No dependency if I were I.