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Drat! I thought I'd moved far enough South that civilization couldn't locate me down here on Pigeon Roost Pike (had to move-Possum Grape got "gentrified"), but that dang 21st century keeps creepin' in. A while back some lost sheep carrying a sheaf of QuickBooks papers strayed in; said a big-town CPA threw 'em out, and would I save them from the 10-15 guillotine? Sacrifice is demanded here since I've never done a QB case before (hard to believe, I know; I keep up-to-date {own a cell phone}). They printed out the whole set of books, I located the P&L, and it all seems laid-out okay: sales, m'dse. cost, utilities, insurance, supplies, etc. except for one little item ($40K) oddly entitled "Ask The Tax Man" (I anticipate a bit of diggin' on that one). This has apparently been goin' on for years, so I don't think I'll go back later and unearth any buried bodies. Anything else I need to know? The last "real" set of books I saw was in 1975 - a big cloth-bound ledger held together with those screw-together steel extensions (if you recognize those you're a bit long-in-the-tooth too - sure was fun trying to balance those columnar pages). Now I got to figure out what to charge - this case is different from my usual clientele. Here's a more typical one - the story was dug up from ten years ago (I just love to read my own stuff....) "...a feisty gal came in and set down a 13 gallon garbage sack full of tickets, bills, receipts, scribbled notices, and a half-eaten sandwich; asked "How much for income tax?" While ordinarily applying scientific business metric platform-pricing analysis, I had unfortunately loaned the bathroom scales to my cousin last week. Forced to rely on keen business acumen and shrewd Kentucky windage (she's got 11 rent houses), I hoisted the sack, gave it a good theatrical lookin'-at, and (trying to sound assertive) declared "500 bucks." "Done!" she said.

Bart: You might have made out better with the scales. But don't make the mistake the general store owner made one time. A customer came in and said she needed a whole chicken. He reached down into the ice chest behind the counter and put one on the scale that weighed about 3 lb. She thought for a minute and said "that might not be big enough". When he put the chicken back in the ice chest, he realized this was his last one. So he swished it around in the ice, placed it back on the scale, and slipped his thumb on the scale so it read about 4 lb. She thought for a couple of minutes and said, "I'm still not sure 4 lb is enough for my family - I'll just take both of them."

I wish so much that folks who don't know how to use bookkeeping software just wouldn't. My new guy with the retail store sent me an income statement to use for estimated tax payment purposes. Me: Is sales tax included in your gross sales? New Guy: I don't know. Me: See this sales tax in the expenses? Sales tax is not deducted as an expense unless you've included it in your sales. New Guy: Wow, I think you're right. Why is there?

Whatever you think you should charge, add a 30% fudge factor to the estimate. Almost no one is upset at paying less.

I wish QB had never been invented. Yes, it works. Yes, it has capabilities. But yes, it allows any irstwhile business to create their own accounting mess. When the advertised features of a product tell you This will allow you to do anything you want to do, and You can do everything yourself ...then you end up with what you deserve...

I am so happy that Oregon has no sales tax. It's extended my career by years.

Oregon - no sales tax. Washington - no income tax. Do y'all have border wars? People crossing the river to buy groceries? Crossing the river to get a job?? I don't even know what river it is. Snake? Columbia? Both?

Christian, since only one of them (your client) is a Virginia resident, the Virginia instructions state " If you and your spouse filed a joint federal return, but only one of you is a Virginia resident, the resident must use Filing Status 3." Filing status 3, is of course, married filing separate. The New Jersey instructions state "If during the entire tax year one spouse was a resident and the other a nonresident, the resident may file a separate New Jersey return." So they can file jointly on the federal and yet separately on the states. Calculations of income and deductions might become a bit hairy (think higher fees!) but should not be so very complicated.

The trick (which I struggle with myself) is *not* to think of these poor deluded people as "problem clients" but rather as "walking annuities" because of the repeat business!

Husband and wife for a rental property - sounds like a 1065 to me. Side-steps the whole "compensation" issue of an S-corp, too.

Well John, It's okay with me. P.S. In such cases where I don't know what the hell I'm doin'; I tend to follow that rule of "Do what you want to do...and the hell with everybody else."

Jack, The point is, the IRS publishes all of the PTIN numbers and email addresses of all practitioners. From that list is where all these scammers and CE companies are getting our email to try to defraud us or to get us to buy something. So the IRS is suggesting you get an email account that they will publish that you can put all that crap into, but you have to check it because the IRS will use it to remind you about your PTIN renewal. Tom Modesto, CA

It is very unlikely that we will ever know those details ! Equifax doesn't appear to be the kind of stand up organization with a high level of integrity that would provide those details. I predict that they will stall and try to run out the clock with assumption that this will all blow over. Anyone who thinks that they will receive some measure of accountability out of this mess will likely be very disappointed ! Don't forget that this industry is basically unregulated !!!