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I have asked what day this week is good for your tax prep appointment... I remain persistent on that being the only purpose for their call.

Federal Court Prohibits Nevada Tax Preparer from Preparing Returns Containing Foreign Earned Income Exclusion A federal court has barred a North Las Vegas, Nevada, woman and her business from preparing federal tax returns that contain or involve foreign earned income and from promoting the exclusion of foreign earned income to others, the Justice Department announced today. The civil injunction order, to which Sheila Bunting consented, was entered by U.S. District Judge James C. Mahan of the District of Nevada. The injunction also bars Bunting’s business, 5 Star Tax LLC, from continuing to prepare tax returns that contain or involve foreign earned income, and from promoting the exclusion of foreign earned income to others. According to the complaint, Bunting inappropriately attempted to exclude foreign earned income from the calculation of her customers’ federal tax liabilities, which understated her customers’ correct tax liabilities or inflated improper refunds. Typically, U.S. citizens may exempt some foreign earned income from the calculation of gross income if they are present in a foreign country for at least 330 full days out of 12 consecutive months. This period can be waived when the Secretary of the Treasury determines, after consultation with the Secretary of State, that individuals were required to leave a foreign country due to war, civil unrest or other conditions that preclude the normal conduct of business, among other things. In implementing this waiver provision, each year the Secretary of the Treasury publishes a list of countries that have been determined eligible for waiver requests. According to the suit, Bunting disregarded the published list of waiver-eligible countries in filing the exclusion of foreign earned income on behalf of her customers. The injunction requires Bunting to provide a list of customers that identifies by name, social security number, address, e-mail address, telephone number and tax periods, all persons for whom she has prepared federal tax returns or claims for refund since Jan. 1, 2012, that reference foreign earned income

Since I started this thread, I want to give an update. The first potential buyer called and said he didn't think it was fit after reviewing some of financials. However, he did mention a friend of his who might be interested. This second potential buyer and I had a two hour meeting getting to know each other. The one take away was we agreed that January 1 would be a good takeover date. Of course, many other details will be worked out over the next months. We have another meeting scheduled for July. Looks promising.

Try to see if you can get a blacked out copy of one of the worker amended return. I believe I wrote before about a former client that told me what another tax preparer was doing for people at his work. He asked me what I thought about it and if he should do it, I told him no, it's fraud etc.... about two year's later (he did not return as a client) out of the blue he called and thanked me, I said for what I haven't done any work for you in a while, he said no, for telling me not to amend my returns, everyone at his work got busted by the IRS, out of curiosity and I asked him who was this preparer, he gave the person location and name of business, the word Mama was part of the business name.

Just like the self proclaimed ministers and clergy back in the 80s and 90s....eventually the IRS caught up with them and they all had to pay it back. Many firemen and cops did it back then, holding services in their living room for their kids. I went on one audit (return not prepared by me) and the auditor just shook his head and said, "I wish you never fell for this." My work was done at that point.

I have been known to break out in song at telemarketers. Happy Birthday and My Way. Real loud until they hang up. But usually I just click the phone on and off. If they are persistent, I block them. Helps in the short term.

I started answering them and don't give them a chance to talk I yell "remove my number from your list!!!" they say ok we will remove it. Since the end of May I've been getting between15-20 calls to my office.

I don't get too many at home, but on my work phone, easily a dozen or more each week. Since most of my clients use email rather than call, I virtually never answer the business phone. If I see it's a local number, I might, but even then a lot of times it's robocalls. Drives me nuts.

When I don' t recognize the number, I put it on speaker and don't say anything when I answer. If the call holds with no one speaking on the other end, I just leave the call connected on speaker. Eventually it hangs up, but at least I've saved one or two other people from getting an annoying call. If there's a live person on the other end who speaks up, then no matter what they say, I respond with what Katherine recommends - "who are you and why are you calling?" That keeps control in my hands. It also gives me chance to tell them to put me on the "do not call" list, although I know it's pretty much a waste of time to utter those words. I handle the "your computer's infected and we need to fix it" calls quite differently if I have some time, because they're a real danger to some people. I have some fun with those guys.

Sure it is! Typical of worthless legislation, those politicians in my state were smiling on TV when this "Do not Call" was legislated. The result is what happens when politicians want to pass a popular law, but never come up with any enforcement money. In recent days, the cellphone companies have been on TV telling everyone that they are going to stop robocalls on cellphones. In the conversion from land-lines to cell-phones, the phone companies are now reaping financial objectives they were never able to achieve in decades worth of land-lines: namely the ability to charge by the minute for local calls! Cellular customers who now look at the "caller ID" are simply not answering the phone, whereas without the robocalls they would routinely answer the phone and accumulate minutes. Since there is a negative economic impact to huge multinational fortune 500 companies, my guess is the providers will be more successful than government efforts. Note that the same providers are not acting to protect land-lines, as the economic benefits do not exist. My wife and I receive at least 15 calls a day from unwanted callers. I tell her to not even answer the phone to hang up, because it verifies that the caller has reached a working number.