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Exactly. I have had several people want to get together and determine what steps need to be taken to prepare for the new plan. What's the point? Even if they pass a tax bill, we don't honestly know what it'll look like right now and it's not a certainty they pass anything. Honestly, taxes NEVER get significantly more simple.

I also look up the property tax assessment. If the land is say 15% of the tax assessor’s total, I assign 15% of the number you’re working with to land.

I usually use the property tax bill (supposed to be on all bills, hollow laugh) or property card record from the online assessor's database (almost always has the info). If I still can't find it, I call the town assessor's office. They have all the splits between land and building values.

In the past, tax "simplification" has been very good for business. We will see.

Respectfully, this seems as unreasonable to me as your assessor’s errors do to you. What the taxpayer wants to do and how long he’s going to own a property mean zero. I get what you’re saying, and IRS is oblivious, but ok I am shutting up now. Respectfully. Friends 4 Ever.

This isn't really big news, but it came up in another thread so I thought I should explain this feature a little bit. I've added a couple "reactions" to the list. So now, in addition to Like, Thanks, Haha, Confused, and Sad, we also have Thumbs Down and Angry. There is a point system going on behind the scenes associated with this feature, and those points are what determine who shows up on the Leaderboard. Like, Thanks, and Haha all contribute +1 points to a user's total. The rest are all neutral. There is an option to add negative (-1 point) reactions, but they're not currently enabled. I have chosen to keep Thumbs Down and Angry "neutral" because the could be used in different ways, for example: You might be annoyed that there is a new botnet or bit of ransomware floating around the internet, which you might want to give a thumbs down to show your annoyance with that news. You might want to show that you disagree someone's assessment of a particular tax-related situation. There is a possibility that I'll bring back the Downvote (-1 points) option for that second bullet point, but I haven't decided yet. I'm adding more emojis next.

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If you have a PDF iFilter installed, you can search the contents of all the PDF copies of returns. You have to also change the Windows Indexing Options to index file contents of PDF files (Advanced, File Types)... and wait for the indexing to complete.

Thanks for the link, easytax. With today's extra hour of sleep, I had the energy to read through it. Like Jack, I try to avoid reading proposed changes, but this one has garnered so much attention I thought it necessary. I won't go into the changes the media has covered so often, but I found many surprises. Charitable miles will finally be adjusted for inflation. Gone are credits for adoption, elderly and disabled, electric cars. Moving expenses won't be deductible, and employer reimbursed moving expenses will be taxable. The proposal says students can no longer claim the Hope Scholarship Credit. The IRS pub says that credit isn't available in 2016, so the policymakers apparently never read current law. Lifetime Learning Credit is repealed. Students can take the AOC for a fifth year at half the rate ($500 refundable). Employer-provided education assistance is taxable, as is savings bond interest even if used for higher ed. No more Coverdells. 529s can cover $10k elementary and secondary school tuition. No more deductions for casualty losses. Proposal makes an exception for "hurricanes" but later says federal disaster areas. Itemized deductions will no longer be limited. Charitable deductions allowed up to 60% AGI. Proposal seems to get rid of professional gambler Sch C losses. Their losses + expenses will be limited to winnings. Refinanced mortgages will use date of original mortgage, so will be grandfathered if original mortgage was. Exclusion of gain on principal residence: Must own and use for 5 of 8 years; can only use once every 5 years. Exclusion phases out dollar for dollar for AGIs above $250k single and $500k MFJ. Like-kind exchanges limited to real property. No more IRA recharacterizations. Businesses can't deduct entertainment expenses or transportation and gym fringe benefits. Private activity bonds, including for stadiums, not tax exempt. Repeal of technical termination of partnerships when 50% interest sold or exchanged.

I will believe NOTHING, until the IRS issues the regulations. Till then, nothing changes.

The cry for years is a tax system where everyone pays the same rate. Now that the changes are ready to be put in place to move toward that, all those that have paid very little or no tax are PLAYING VICTIM!! I want every person to have some skin in the tax system. When 50% pay no tax or get back more than was withheld, that is not the "fair" system all the people are demanding. These changes will not please everyone, but moves the system toward EVERYONE having a part in paying taxes.

Nov. 3, 2017 The IRS has not yet announced a date that it will begin accepting individual tax returns for the 2018 tax filing season. At the present time, the IRS is continuing to update its programming and processing systems for 2018. In addition, the IRS continues to closely monitor potential legislation that could affect the 2018 tax season, including a number of “extender” tax provisions that expired at the end of 2016 that could potentially be renewed for tax year 2017 by Congress. The IRS anticipates it will not be at a point to announce a filing season start date until later in the calendar year. The IRS will continue to work closely with the nation’s tax professionals and software community as preparations continue for the 2018 tax filing season. Speculation on the Internet that the IRS will begin accepting tax returns on Jan. 22 or after the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday in January is inaccurate and misleading; no such date has been set. https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-statement-on-2018-filing-season-start-date

The stated points of tax reform were to (1) cut corporate tax rates (as if big corps pay anything now) and (2) to simplify the tax code. The latest proposal is anything but simplification. Up to $10k of property taxes will be allowed; interest on mortgages up to $500k, no second homes; child tax and adult dependent CREDITS instead of deductions from AGI. Instead of erasing 1000 pages of tax code they seem to have added 10,000. Elimination of the AMT is anything but. The original proposal seemed to eliminate the regular tax system and imposed AMT on everyone--no dependent exemptions, no state/local deduction, no misc itemized deductions, limited mortgage interest deduction. Face it, AMT is a much simpler tax system than what we have now (and for that matter, what is in the revised proposal). Typically those with really high AGI don't pay AMT because their regular tax rate is higher than 28%. Those with big real estate investments will get a break because they won't have the longer AMT depreciation periods. I don't see the student loan interest adjustment helping many people now, so have no opinion on its elimination. The adjustment starts to phase out at $65k single and $130k MFJ and is gone at $80k/$160k. These are the people who get loans! Lower AGI gets grants; higher can presumably afford to pay tuition. The one part of the proposal I am enthusiastic about is the elimination of HOH filing status. It's confusing and often misused.

WIll that allow the use of Foxit Reader? I've completely dumped Adobe Reader for the Foxit version. It allows me to easily highlight areas for signing, add some typing if required plus use it as my scanner software. It seems far smaller and quicker to use.

If the criterion for business use is that one's significant other won't get in your vehicle, then I'm in great shape. I can start deducting mileage on my car, because my wife absolutely refuses to ride in it.

Every time they "simplify" the tax code, my phone starts ringing off the hook. Plus, all the prior-year issues remain under the old rules and the IRS has ten years to catch up with those. But gee, wouldn't it be nice to help clients make the most out of their business opportunities, rather than our constant scramble to protect them from the ramifications of thoughtless decisions and times being stuck between the rock and the hard place? ("I want to live in Theory. EVERYTHING works in Theory!")

There are some very, very interesting proposals in this bill right now. How many will survive remains to be seen, but there is going to be a lot of tax planning to do for our clients, especially in states like CA, NJ, NY. Those clients in the 75-125K range are going to want to look at different options to save tax dollars if the SALT tax deductions are limited the way they are being proposed. There will always be EIC / CTC / AOTC issues to deal with for our clients, and some of those rules are changing. The 401K option may be one of the best tax strategy vehicles left to our upper middle clients. Right now there is no changes proposed in the current plan. Our clients with pass through businesses are going to need us more than ever. There will be work to do. Tom Modesto, CA

Deb, You missed the third line "3. What we don't need, we will send back!

Two lines on postcard: 1. How much did you Make? 2. Send it in!

Goggledegook! I have been in this business for thirty plus years and not a year has gone by that I have not heard a cry to tax simplification. If the post card idea works for a bunch of folks - Great! But as long as there is taxation, there will be opportunity for you and me. And my firm belief is that there will always be taxation.

Perfect call on the thumbs-down; lots of times I appreciate a post but do NOT like what it is reporting.

On rare occasion, I get a "permissions" problem on a pdf. If I just copy the thing (right click, "Copy" then right-click "Paste" right in the same folder), the copy will then open right up. Go figure. (My assistant figured out this dodge.)

Alright, added a bunch of emoticons/emojis/whatever. Nevermind! I had to remove all of the new emojis. I checked the roadmap for the forum software, and a new emoji system is in the works for the next version, and it looks like full unicode emoji support will be added. I want to avoid conflicts, so for now I'll have to get rid of the new ones. Sorry

Oooo.. I like the new faces! Well done!

There is a very convoluted equation I go through where I ask the client if they would rather take more depreciation or less and how long they plan on owning the rental property. I decide between 10% and 70% of the value. Then I ask "does it seem reasonable the land itself might be worth $X?", they say yes and we roll with it. My county tax doc says the land under my house is worth 10% of the value assessed. In reality the land is worth about 70% of the value of my home. For my co-worker the land was worth more than the value of the home as the buyers had to spend $20k to demolish it so they could build a mansion on the lot.

Employee expenses not reimbursed by the employer and Home Equity Loan Interest will not be deductible. The bill uses the words "Original Acquisition Debt", which may mean that we will tracking the original declining principal thru Refis etc. Headache !

Every tax bill has winners and loser. Of course, everyone is talking about the taxpayers in high tax states like CA, NJ & NY. Some of the less obvious ones are: 1. Families with more than 3 children especially if they are older than 16 due to loss of personal exemptions. 2. Families with children in college due to loss of education credits and student loan interest deduction. 3. The absolute worst is the loss of the medical expense deduction: I have a 97 year old client with dementia who has been in a memory care facility for the last 3 and 1/2 years. She has income of about $40,000 per year. Her medical expenses are over $7,000 per month which are all deductible, which of course reduces her taxable income down to zero. Under this bill her medical deductions would be zero, which means that she would be paying taxes on all of her income above $12,000 since the net effect of the increased standard deduction minus the lost personal exemption is only $400. Also families with parents or children who have chronic medical conditions that require expensive drugs with be be really slammed.