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That would be helpful if we knew they were finished with the backlog in time for the 2020 filing season.

Most employees likely have an unlimited talk and text plan so it doesn't cost the employee anything to use their personal phone. I wouldn't mind having a separate phone for work and personal. I don't want customers, vendors, coworkers, etc. knowing my personal cell number. Another option would be for all employees to install Google Voice and get a Google voice number. You can set up a Google voice number to ring on your phone. And when you use the Voice app to call out, the caller ID is your Google voice number. I did this when I was phone banking for the election and didn't want my number coming on the caller ID and getting crank calls back.

Just Google "Reimbursement of employee phones" and you will find lots of stuff

I still remember when QB had version 1, 2, 3 etc... and in DOS

A client had filed an estate return and was supposed to get a big refund. The original was efiled and we have IRS acknowledgement that it was received. When I got involved on the decedent's final return I noticed an error on the estate return, amended it, and the client sent in a check for the balance due. (In essence the original refund shouldn't have been so big.) They hadn't received the refund yet because the 1310 was missing. I fully expected an IRS notice asking for the 1310. Instead, client just received a notice that IRS got their check for the amended and didn't have an account to apply it to so asked for a copy of the return. The original was efiled so there has to be an account! He called IRS and was advised not to do anything, just to wait until IRS sorts it out. Congress recently asked IRS if it will be through the backlog in time for 2020 filing season. Good question.

Yep. I believe I remember QB not having a General Ledger report until version 3. It was then I concluded that they weren't consulting with accountants, and it still feels that way often when using QB and especially when setting up payroll for the first time. Seriously? One liability account and one expense account for EVERYTHING!! That's insane.

Thanks for the comment!

It depends on if the client needs to hit the 100% or 110% amount, too - so check that.

So you are not aware of the 2011 IRS Notice that pertains to employer provided cell phones and the related IRS memo that extends business use provisions of the notice to reimbursements of employee cell phones? I do not have time to post details now.

Thanks for all the perspectives. My particular focus was the frustration with the partial information that's floating around. People can read that the income is not considered taxable as debt forgiveness and then the article stops, or else if the article tells the whole story the client fails to read it all or "conveniently" forgets the other part. There isn't much to do other than tell them the whole story and then watch the puzzled expression on their face. Interesting turn this conversation has taken. Accounting for the PPP loan on the tax return might be challenging in several ways, depending upon what Congress does (if anything). What about preparing an interim financial statement? Say a client needs a Sept 30, 2020 financial statement for a lender. Do we need to reduce payroll/rent expense to reflect the anticipated loan forgiveness, add a line item at the bottom of the financial statement with a title such as "Anticipated PPP loan forgiveness", or just ignore the expected loan forgiveness since it hasn't yet been processed & approved? In the last scenario the financial statement can look pretty ugly, in the first scenario it can look too rosy, but in the middle scenario there is full disclosure. This might be considered the "Goldilocks" conundrum.

When I first read your post, I agreed with what you said. But after thinking about it, I think that it's quite likely that a law will be passed next year that will make the these expenses deductible. Second how do you record forgiveness income as of 12/31/20 if the application hasn't been filed? Third, where do you show nontaxable forgiveness of debt income on the tax return?

A new employee told a client to not expect the 2017 1040X refund until January. I told her she should have told them a year, because it was taking 6-9 months BEFORE the virus. This is why the IRS wanted to start efiling amended 1040's. It should streamline their processes and save them paying so much interest on refunds.

I just installed 2021 so I have 2012-2021 installed (10 years), but I rarely use below 2014 anymore. And don't you wish Intuit would store the version in the file details so you'd know which version the file is from? At least the accountants copies have the version number in the filename.

Last year or the year before the IRS decided that when an employer pays for a cell phone and the monthly bill, that the personal usage by an employee was no longer taxable. Unfortunately, this is not your client's situation. Other nontaxable items are one time payments like Safety Awards or the proverbial "Thanksgiving Turkey" Your client's socalled stipend is not one time but monthly so from my point of view this is taxable income. Actually many years ago I was an Accounting Supervisor for a good sized Forest Products Company, who would buy a truckload of frozen turkeys and then give them out to the employees.

You can have more than one version of QB on your computer. I have about 6 that I still use for clients who have older versions and don't want to upgrade. I try to only upgrade every other year if possible, but sometimes I have to get another one when a client comes in with a higher version than I do.

Yes, the returns will just be filed late. IRS MeF will accept the current and prior 2 years (2019, 2018, 2017) up through the date of shutdown that occurs sometime in mid- to late-November. When e-file reopens in Jan 2021, you will be able to file returns for 2020, 2019, and 2018 at that point.

I have QB back to 2015 installed on my older computer, and (so far) just 2019 on the new computer. I can download 2020 and 2021 any time I need them, but they're humongous files, so I won't bother until then. I make notes in the client file about their version, but YES it would be nice if the file name itself showed the version!