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It has become the national obsession. Had a client call me, wanting to know what form he needed to fill out, to be sure he got the large amount. (Returns are filed, except 2019) He said, "We don't need the money, we are just going to put it in savings." I told him to check the IRS website. He then started ranting about why it is taking so long for his to come in. (His neighbor, a barber, had received his and he was almost demanding that I do something so he would get his. I also told him to call 800-829-1040 if he had questions, because I have no information, and cannot do anything for him to get that money "as quick as we can." I guess his bank had timeframes for putting money in his savings. He then tried to call me out, because he had not received his stimulus. I have one less client for 2019 taxes now.

...and both were from wealthier retired clients, whose income stream is secure, wanting to know why they didn't get the full 1,200 per filer. And both called twice. One wanted to know if he had to share it with his spouse, and the other wanted to me check the calculation to make sure it was right. I told him we wouldn't know if it was right until we filed his 2020 tax returns. <sigh>

Ah but you can get 90% or more of the joy by just *thinking* about it. Indulge those fantasies for a couple of minutes, then shelve it and move on.

Under the new guidance of the revised "Interim Final Rule', it appears sole proprietors are not on equal footing with a sole corp owner. The new guidance basically says no SE income + no employees = Zero PPP. Here is an example where a sole shareholder would be better off a. business has 2019 $1,000 loss operating as sole proprietor, no employees and owner takes $50,000 in draws. PPP NOT ALLOWED. b. Same business but sole shareholder paid $50,000 in wage plus $3,800 federal payroll taxes. PPP= 53,800/12*2.5=$11,208. Maybe I am over looking something here but it appears the PPP cards are stacked against the sole proprietor as long as SE earnings are less than what a reasonable wage would be.

What makes this kind of situation even more distasteful, is the fact that there is a limit on the penalty for the following year.

Just an FYI. I applied for the EIDL on May 31 and the PPP on April 14. This afternoon (Saturday, Apr 18) my credit monitoring service sent an alert that there had been an inquiry on my credit file. Turns out the inquiry was by the SBA. I've heard from several places that the SBA runs a credit check on owners before depositing EIDL funds. The purpose is not to obtain credit scores, but simply to verify that the owner exists and has submitted truthful information. So this COULD mean that although the initial funds are exhausted, there may be some residual distributions of funds which were committed but not yet disbursed. If my speculation is right, this might be an encouragement to anyone who has applied but has not yet received any funding from EIDL or PPP. (I thought about waiting until the next couple of business days to post this after I had either received a deposit or not, but decided I might forget the time line by then)

Did you tell your (now former) client how many IRS letters each of see every year because people never bothered to give us their 1095A? She'll find out soon enough. We all have clients who try to cheat in broad daylight. This one hurt because you didn't see it, but of course you couldn't. The forgone fee will be worth the entertainment value when she comes running in with that letter.

Don't worry, the IRS checks the Premium Tax Credit all the time. There is no way they will get away with it. Please don't send a letter to the IRS for two reasons: 1.- The IRS will not do anything 2.- Tax preparers are already doing the auditing process for the IRS and we don't need to be the enforcers too. Just my two cents.

If you choose to have an overpayment of tax credited to your estimated tax, you can’t have any of that amount refunded to you until you file your tax return for the following year. You also can’t use that overpayment in any other way. https://www.irs.gov/publications/p505#en_US_2019_publink1000194714