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Like not needing tax preparer?

Pretty sure that spousal IRA can only be claimed on a joint return.

Client put $700 into her Roth IRA for 2019. No wages. Business loss. Filing status is married filing separately because her divorce was not final until early 2020. Can she still claim that contribution as a "spousal IRA" or is she hosed? The only thing I found was that MFS uses the single limits for income phase-outs for a Roth IRA. Worse comes to worse she will recharacterize to a 2020 contribution and only have to get back any growth. Annoying; her business is cyclical and every few years she goes to a slew of shows and runs up huge travel expenses. Good thing she was planning NO travel in 2020! So that should be a profitable year for her.

I've been turned off by the IRS for decades.

GAAP, partnership, audited financials. Knowing the specific industry may also be helpful if there are specific guides for it. Fwiw, I use only the guides from PPC (Practitioner Publishing Co) through Thomson Reuters. If looking at its products, I'd start with the guide called "Preparing Financial Statements" that goes through each major item on each statement and has a chapter on disclosures that includes summary and comprehensive checklists of required disclosures, either in the statements themselves or in the notes. The appendix to that chapter also has some illustrative notes. PPC also has a "Trends" volume that I believe is also included with this particular publication that has complete financials submitted by practitioners that includes the notes. The index to that guide allows the user to look up examples of individual notes by subject also. PPC guides are the only ones I've ever used, and I'm sure other publishers of reference materials will have something along similar lines, including WK/CCH, and the AICPA. PPC non-subscription products have a 30-day satisfaction guarantee. Those on recurring subscription have a different cancellation policy.

I'm also not a CPA and haven't had to learn footnotes. (My MBA is in finance, but I was only one accounting course short of a double major in accounting. My best instructor told me to major in accounting but to never tell anyone or I'd end up doing all the grunt work!) I do know that CCH has great textbooks. Also, webinars. And, they purchased CPELink a few years ago, so all the CCH CPELink education now benefits from the CCH inhouse experts/CPAs/lawyers as well as their stable of national speakers/writers. I would think AICPA would have great resources, too. Good luck. They are lucky to have you. Compute the CPA firm's hourly amount on their $60K per year ($750/hour?) and apply it to your 2,080 or more annual hours -- and ask for a raise!

That's what I was afraid of. Thanks, Judy!

Just count backwards 3 years: 19, 18, 17. We can only efile 3 most current years. 17 will drop off as soon as IRS closes efiling in November (usually).

In other words, the 80k was wrongfully included in sales, because it was deposited to the bank account but not properly recorded as a liability. That means the losses they reported on Sch C were off by 80k, and returns should be amended. Some of that 80k is probably penalties and interest. This is why I don't like to do Sch C's without a balanced set of books.

I see what you mean, not a lot of difference from gray to black. But black plus larger is definitely helpful for these old eyes.