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It's the employer's decision whether or not to opt in. The employer's participation is not driven by their employee's desire to have more take home pay.

If you don't need your 2020 RMD, or don't need all of it to live on, letting it remain in your IRA lets it grow tax deferred longer. Markets took a hit during this pandemic, so you stand a better chance of recovering if more cash remains invested longer this year. Also, as you say, if your IRS withdrawals make more of your SS taxable or put some income in a higher tax bracket, you might want to control how much, if any, you withdraw. Depending on your investments, this might not be a good time to sell to take withdrawals. If this is a low income year for you, and you don't need your full RMD for living expenses, it might be a good time to convert some of your Traditional IRA to a Roth IRA. If you expect to be in a higher bracket or expect to need less to live on in 2021 compared to 2020, then you might want to take your RMD, or a larger portion of it, this year. As with anything tax, the answer is It Depends!

I get plenty of those, too. It is almost always a robocall, but sometime it is a potential new client that I wouldn't want to miss. So, instead of answering, "Hello", or "Yes", which the robot recognizes, I say, "Good morning. How can I help you". If it is a live person needing tax services, they will ask an appropriate question. If it is a robot, it will wait for 3 seconds and disconnect. Then I block that number. Of course that doesn't always work as the robocallers will switch to another number, but at least it stops the less sophisticated ones, like those asking for a donation or to answer a survey.

You should share stories here on a regular basis. I would so look forward to reading them!

I swear, if that outfit calls me one more time I'm gonna, gonna, ....hmmm.... uh... answer it I guess. They've lightened up lately - no more than three calls daily instead of the previously normal six. Since they already own everything in internet-land (and probably a telephone company or two to boot), I don't suppose there's any chance of them runnin' out of cash any time in the next century or so. At first they were calling on the up-and-up (ID said "out of region"); that didn't work so they bought up all our local three-digit prefix numbers so I'd think it might be a legit local customer, but the salesman's spiel gave that away pretty quick and we hung up immediately. They quit that and started using strange out-of-the-way towns for caller ID (lucky for me that Horseshoe Bend, AR isn't strange 'cause I've already been to Possum Grape and Oil Trough). The latest gimmick is they're using random names: now I've got to figure out who the heck is R. Hicks (no address listed). Sure wish I had my party line back - two long rings followed by three short. 'Course I guess faxin' would be a little more complicated and then there's those dadgum confidentiality rules to rassle with. P. S. Ran into a (socially-distanced) old friend the other day and right in the middle of my complaints she said "Bart - Prozac is not the answer!

One argument in favor of taking the RMD is that in the long run it's likely that tax rates are going up due to the huge deficits.

I still have 15 big returns on extension, so I'm not pulling my policy out right now. From memory, the insurance reimburses me for expenses incident to a security breach. I don't remember a deductible, but I'm sure there is. The only person I know that's filed a claim is the owner of the first CT CPA firm that was hacked that spoke at NYCTATP and did a webinar for the IRS. His insurance company reimbursed him to his policy maximum, and he was very, very happy about that. He'd changed insurance companies and hadn't remembered that he had cyber coverage and was thrilled that he did. You can look up the details for the NAEA group plan online or any insurance company's plan that interests you. See if one of your professional groups has a comparison of policies. Do you want to be able to hire your own lawyer or use the insurance company's lawyer, for example? Nope. You can't undo it. All you can do is cover your out-of-pocket costs of dealing with it so you can spend time calming your clients, hopefully keeping most of your clients, and working through all the paperwork with your clients. The CPA above told us he'd have been out of business without the insurance reimbursement.

The IRS seminar and then the same speaker at my local NY/CT-ATP said $250,000 MINIMUM. By the time you hire a lawyer and a PR person and a preparer or two to cover for you while you deal with the security breach for weeks/months and credit monitoring for everyone in your database (H/W and two kids is FOUR; partnership with 5 partners is SIX, for instance) and maybe even new computers when Homeland Security seizes yours, you'll spend a bundle!

It may be because a scammer attempted to use the taxpayer's SSN to file a fraudulent return to claim a refund.

Pacun, the amount previously received is on the 1040X, Line 18, as required. So the amount shown on 8879 is for the previous overpayment as well as the additional amount. schirallicpa, your question is exactly mine. One would think that to be the case whether or not the original was e-filed from ATX as the one I have was not. I suppose I could override the amount on the 8879 just to show the client and reflect the figure on 1040X, but I am afraid to try to select 1040 to e-file as the software may choose that. Wish this was really ready!