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Treasury has long advocated this technique: https://www.treasury.gov/connect/blog/Pages/Helping-students-and-families-access-college-tax-benefits.aspx I use it all the time. You do have to insure the scholarship is unrestricted (Pell grants are always unrestricted). And if the amount of the scholarship is more than the qualified expenses, it almost has to be unrestricted, doesn't it?

I had my clients reach out to the financial aid office at the school. I got the language of the scholarships.

Had a very active trading client and asked him to check with TDAmeritrade--they do track wash sales and incorporate that into client basis.

Yes, as long as it is not scholarship and grants, no matter who pay or get the loans... the credit follows the exemption of the student.

Based on my understanding and the information you present, you can, yes.

My understanding is that even if the scholarship is used for tuition, if it's not REQUIRED to be used for tuition, you can essentially 'assign' it to other nonqualified expenses (room and board, etc.) and use the amounts paid by the taxpayer as the payment for qualified expenses. I have the bursar's statement, but I also needed the scholarship lingo to make certain they weren't 'tuition only' scholarships. I know it's a lot of work, but in this case, it's worth $2,500 to the taxpayer. (If my understanding is correct, that is. If not, I'm wasting my time and yours, and for that, I apologize.) I'm leaning toward filing this way; It just seems to good to be true, so I wanted to see what others thought. I appreciate all of your input!

For a young kid who hasn't filed yet, I don't push to have him file when he/she has no filing requirement. Once a child has filed, I do push for him/her to NOT miss a year.

Always get the bursar's statement. Forms 1098-T are notoriously inaccurate. (I don't know what that says about the colleges teaching our next generation.)

I always suggest filing to start the statute of limitations running. Does he need to file Form 8938? Is he required to check the boxes on Schedule B, or only if he has a filing requirement? Is he e-filing his own FinCEN Form 114?

No, the IRS doesn't track your carryovers from year to year, even though they probably should. Prepare the return so you have the rollover for next year, just don't bother filing it... unless you're concerned about the SOL.

Had the same thing for a client this year, but a much bigger number. I had the same thought. We went through the statements from Schwab and the basis is correct for the 2019 wash sales sold in 2020. Tom Modesto, CA

I just started using it this year. It's the first online tax portal I've ever used so I cannot compare to others. I like that they are constantly adding upgrades and seeking requests on ways to improve. My clients seem quite happy with it and getting their accounts activated has been very easy. I love how much more organized managing each client has been for me this year. No more One Drive expiring links, fishing for documents in various cloud portals, etc. I feel much more secure in my communications to clients and as they become more comfortable with this way of communicating, I think my days of SS# riddled documents in my email will be minimal. It took me quite a bit of time to understand how to use it and I'm still learning. I don't think I've even scratched the surface of what it can do. If you've already used a online tax portal the learning curve might be shorter. Also, keep in mind the unlimited signatures is true, but if you want KBA signature, it's $1 extra per signature request. I think as I learn to use it, I'll find it better and better. I haven't utilized the workflow feature at all yet. Mostly client communications, doc exchange, signature request and tasks communications. I look forward to post tax season learning about the workflow and pipeline features.

Rita, so sorry to hear this about your mother but glad that you can be with her. You know prayers and supporting thoughts are with you and your mother from this group and more. Do let us know if we can be of other assistance. We are here to help each other. Remember to care for yourself, too.

The following tips were posted on the ATX blog today. What they are saying is this: since our programming practices are too lazy to find and fix our memory leaks, you need to close the program every 15 minutes and reboot your computer three times per day. ----- The following are best practices that you should use in order to ensure optimal ATX performance: Restart computers daily to clear the computer's memory, helping your system work more effectively. Close ATX and/or PCR whenever you leave your desk for an extended period (e.g. for lunch or a meeting), or, at least at the end of your day. Like a computer restart, this also helps clear memory used by ATX/PCR, and will help the application work more efficiently. Roll over returns for clients at least 1 day before the appointment, and make sure to close ATX and/or PCR at the end of the day. If you have to rollover the return just before the appointment, close ATX and restart to refresh the memory at your next possible opportunity. Close and relaunch ATX and/or PCR prior to opening large returns with many forms or records. Large returns require more memory to calculate, print, and e-file--so restarting the application in advance will give you the most system resources possible to handle this.

It's there starting in 2019. Try it. You'll like it!

The disallowed loss from a wash-sale is added to the basis of the replacement security. When it is sold, the disallowed loss effectively reduces the gain or increases the loss of that transaction.

Rita, I am so sorry to hear about your mother. I will definitely send prayers, because I just finished hospice with my mom and they were wonderful. They told us to also take care of ourselves. It is not easy to do that when you are worried about your loved ones.

1. Only interest and dividends on parents' returns. But, as you say, why raise their AGI? With capital gains, all must be on child's return. 2. Yes. 3. I do. It starts the statute of limitations running. No return; no SOL.

No reason to fix it if users are willing to put up with these problems.

It looks like ATX still has all the same problems, it had when I left 3 years ago.

BOOM! THERE it IS! It is in his divorce decree that he claims the children every even year. BUT.... since they don't spend over half the year with Dad/step mom, the 8332 must be used. And THAT says Dad claims them. Thanks for turning my little light on! IF the children actually spent half the year with Dad, and the 8332 was not necessary, THEN, step mom could claim them. Thanks for the chat, y'all.

Thank you, Fine Ladies. I am out of the office with my 97 year old mother who's in the hospital, hopefully getting settled in to our very fine Hospice facility today, Monday the 8th. Great ideas, and I was about out of them, not gonna lie. Appreciate your prayers.

I think income will be adjusted but EIC will stay using the exempted unemployment as part of the formula.

In the sch E worksheet is the property marked 'complete disposition of passive activity'? If that box is not checked then the losses created by entering the negative 481(a) adjustment on the 'other expenses' line will not be allowed.

Right, it's supposed to be a one-line adjustment, but if it had been done correctly from the outset those entries would be on the 4562. In this case I might be inclined to enter the assets there with all of the pertinent data, date, depreciable basis and accum depreciation through 2019 with the labels something like "rental house-481(a)" and let the system handle the disposition correctly. That might get you to the correct result anyway, I think. If there is some other component of the 481(a) adjustment because of owner's use in previous years that limited other expenses creating a carryover that the program isn't handling correctly and there aren't many years involved, you could enter it in the original year and roll the Sch E and 4562 forward through each year's program. Maybe that would work?

I really hope this is one of those times. One, I don't want to be amending returns in the middle of the season, but those are folks who won't want to wait for much needed extra refunds. And two, I hate to have to charge people who are hurting for amended returns that aren't their fault. Seems like the IRS would be able to flag and recalculate those returns pretty easily, albeit maybe not until summer.

I don't think the states will reissue. Probably the states that stay coupled with the IRS for most/all items will do the same with UI benefits. The states that decouple are anyone's guess. The states that currently do NOT tax UI benefits probably will continue to do the same. I have two so far that I'm holding. They're both under the $150,000 threshold, so agree with me to hold. I want to know the definition of "household." If the dependent who has $12,300 in UI benefits lives with her parents who make well in excess of $150,000, then does that mean the dependent's household income is also over $150,000 and she cannot exclude $10,200 from tax? And, for Kiddie Tax, after excluding $10,200, is the next $1,100 also not taxable, following $1,100 taxed at child's rate, and excess over $2,200 + $10,200 taxed at parents' rate? Or, does the exclusion of $10,200 include the first $1,100 and the 2nd $1,100 and go straight to parents' rate for the excess over $10,200?

I doubt states will reissue 1099Gs. Why would they need to do that? I see this as being similar to someone that received a 1099G for a state refund that is only partially taxable under the tax benefit rule. Perhaps we'll have a worksheet or a built-in calculate for the federal, and then each state has its own rules and handling. Some don't tax it already, some more already made it n/t for 2020 alone, and for those that piggyback federal under normal circumstances, I guess they'll have decisions to make. As far as holding returns, I posted this in the other similar topic we have going: