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We've had clients who expressed amazement that a real person answers our phone. Maybe we should automate to something with 12 menus so we can be more "with it." (We actually considered having a menu option when folks were calling nonstop about stimulus payments, when they'd come, how much, I didn't get mine yet. The message would tell them WE HAVE NOTING TO DO WITH IT and give them the IRS number.)

Good article: "Don’t start construction on preparing the house for your personal use right after acquiring it" "The principal question is your intent when you acquired the replacement property. If you sincerely intended to treat it as investment property and not to move into it at the first opportunity, then you are on the right track. How can you prove that intent? If you can’t meet the safe harbor test discussed below, the best way is to actually use the property for investment purposes for a significant period of time after its acquisition. If you rent the house out at fair market value for at least a year (according to some commentators), then you likely have shown you acquired the property with investment intent. If you merely put up a good show, on the other hand, such as listing it for rent at an amount that is significantly higher than market, or not even listing it at all, the IRS will see right through that" Sometimes it's amazing how hard it is protect clients from themselves.

Perhaps this article might help... It's not an exact answer, but it hits many of the points you might question. https://farr.com/1031-exchange-into-principal-residence/

And Merry Christmas to you Eric, thank you for all you do!

I stopped using CCleaner because it was clearing all my settings in Firefox add-ons, which was terrible annoying. I set all my browsers to clear the cache when closing, but I don't clear cookies or site data because it makes logging in that much harder. But Firefox does have an 'Exception List' to save cookies you want, so once I've done that for my regular sites, I'll have FF delete cookies and site data on close, as well.

I really dread this tax season. I was going to spit out a letter to my clients with children that they need to bring me their letter from the IRS and confirm the amounts reported. Which you know won't be right........... Which you know the letter won't get out til March................

If everything was clear cut in black and white then we would be out of business.

That's my impression subject to the following: "There are some scenarios where shareholders of an S corp can complete a 1031 exchange on legacy assets, but that requires owning and operating the asset as an active business investment -- likely the exact opposite scenario when dissolution of the corporation is the main objective or when shareholders are at loggerheads due to competing financial interest"

Just checked a pdf with a link - opened in my default browser. Now I have an insatiable desire to do all my internet searches via my start menu.

I could be wrong but I think the MS search issue is only if you search the internet via your start menu. I don't know that I've ever used that to search the internet.

And here I am dreading actually having to close all of the gazillion open tabs across multiple windows to allow my browser to update. Reminds me an awful lot of Windows 98, Internet Explorer, and a certain antitrust lawsuit.

Thank you all, and Merry Christmas

A UK pension received by a US "tax resident" is taxable on Form 1040. Enter it on the "FECWKST" -- the Foreign Employer Compensation & Pension form -- an annoying form that requires what seem to be duplicate addresses and treat the taxpayer as still being overseas. The bigger fight might be with US state treatment. It should qualify for most state's exclusion of all or a portion of a 'private'/non-governmental pension (unless it indeed is from a government but I haven't handled one of those). But I have had to fend off a couple of states that took issue with the lack of an EIN as well as monthly amounts that varied because of foreign-exchange fluctuations. Good luck!

I use Firefox for both IRS stuff and Vanguard (and everything else). Very few sites don't play nice on it. The program automatically blocks trackers, and you can turn off animation for each site. I hate bouncing ads!

A tool would be awesome. Hopefully they have one AND keep it available for a while. I still need the first round stimulus tool............

Do you think they could come out a tool to check online? People are funny, they told never get stimulus check, but they got debit card already. IRS knew already.