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https://www.irs.gov/newsroom/irs-issues-standard-mileage-rates-for-2022 IR-2021-251, December 17, 2021 WASHINGTON — The Internal Revenue Service today issued the 2022 optional standard mileage rates used to calculate the deductible costs of operating an automobile for business, charitable, medical or moving purposes. Beginning on January 1, 2022, the standard mileage rates for the use of a car (also vans, pickups or panel trucks) will be: 58.5 cents per mile driven for business use, up 2.5 cents from the rate for 2021, 18 cents per mile driven for medical, or moving purposes for qualified active-duty members of the Armed Forces, up 2 cents from the rate for 2021 and 14 cents per mile driven in service of charitable organizations; the rate is set by statute and remains unchanged from 2021.

Get a free Google Voice number and give that out as your firm's cell #. Then you can type texts on your computer and receive texts, too. All of your texts will now be in one place that you can access from anywhere, and not just stored on your cellphone. You can decide what happens when someone calls that number. We have ours set to just take a message.

I hate texting, typing on the tiny keyboard on my phone. But, as cbslee says, the younger clients don't check their emails often. The older ones either, if they're no longer in business and communicate mostly with their own younger family members. So, I type out my replies via email and then text them to Check Your Email. Have to do that with our own grown daughters, too.

Wow, what wonderful, thoughtful responses you all have provided! There is much to think about certainly but the IRS change of address doesn't seem to be as big an issue as I thought it would be (for efiling purposes). For moving, we will be a position to move before selling the existing house, thankfully (husband's retirement kicks in fully in 2022). Friends of our chose their new home, moved in over several weeks carefully deciding what to keep and where, then did the big clean up for sale. I thought that was a great idea but didn't think we could do that; now we can. Regarding phones, around here one cannot get a true land line any longer - it has to be on the fiber optic network. I tried that several years ago in January and 2 weeks later the power went out for several days. We were saved only because I had kept my fax land line. With much begging and pleading and a few tears, the phone folks let me go back. I vowed never to have that again until retirement. I don't know about Google Voice numbers, will have to research that. Currently I have only about 50 clients, all tax, and my 'work' is pretty much January-April and obviously not full time. I take CPE online year round to keep up. And I haven't missed, until COVID, any of my fun things - family reunions and major dive trips to far flung parts of the world. I work to dive, you know! I no longer run; 10th and last marathon was 2018 but do half marathons, walking. The most recent was Oct. 30. So thanks again for so much valuable input. I think the retirement decision should maybe come first as it would impact the housing arrangement. I've had a home office for 25+ years; not sure I could go back to work for someone else. I'm not even sure I would be comfortable working for VITA. Once you've been your own boss.... I'll chat with family over the holidays. I guess I don't really need to alert clients until after tax season if retiring. And as 95%+ of my business is online, the location is not too critical. Maybe this discussion will provide food for thought to others, too. Meanwhile, I do wish each of you the very best of any and all holidays you celebrate. I'm so looking forward to in person candle light service Friday night after our Zoom family holiday greeting in the afternoon. We expect rain here but may your days be Merry and Bright!

Yeah, I recently took a screenshot of my text messages with a client and then forwarded them to my email so I could print the conversation. Not very quick.

Please join me and make a donation to support our community. Thanks, Lee

I think Margaret is a runner if I recall from past posts. And from Cincinnati. I'm close in No. Ky. And run too. I'm only 72 though.

Margaret, I remember meeting you at Rita's. If you are 75, you are a very lovely 75.

It's a bargain sale to related party and is part cap gain sale and part gift. The cap gain portion is $50K (selling price minus basis), and the gift is $40K (FMV minus selling price). For basis in the hands of the transferee, please see sec 1.1015-4. The link also has helpful examples: https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/26/1.1015-4 Disclaimer - answers applies only to this scenario and would differ depending on the seller/transferor's type of entity, the type of property being sold, depreciated or not, and whether sold at gain or loss.

Margaret, I also recently turned 75 Although I intend to continue working part time as long as my health will let me. However I spend the majority of my time doing monthly Writeup/Payroll work, not preparing tax returns. I just counted, I will prepare less than 40 tax returns this coming tax season, 13 of which will be Business Entity Returns. If I had to prepare anywhere approaching 100 Form 1040s, I would already be retired. It's just too big of a grind! At some point my wife and will have to downsize, that will be really hard, we have accumulated way too much stuff!

We plan on moving to Colorado in a few years to be close to our son and I swear that I will be done with my business by then. I don't plan to retire, just find a part-time job that is not tax related and somewhat enjoyable. I have moved my office location three times and have worked out of my house for 10 years. I had lovely clients that moved me twice and set up my office. It was a huge pain to move and I won't move my office again. Changing my information was easy. Unpacking was a huge pain. I receive my faxes over the Internet, but still have a landline. My cell service is not the best in our neighborhood and I want a real landline to stay on hold with the IRS. I was not planning to retire for 6 years, but I'm thinking about three if that will work for us. My husband's health has gone downhill so much the past two years and I am spending so much time taking him to medical appontments and taking over the housework that he has done for the last ten years. Since we lost my mom this year and had to clean out and sell her house, our kids have been helping us (forcing us) to get rid of things that we don't really need. If has really been cathartic (and sad sometimes) to see that it has made a difference. It has taken a lot of time and many, many trips to donate and recycle stuff. It is a good thing, because if something happens to my husband, I won't stick around here long and will have to downsize alot to live in Littleton. If you still love your business, downsize it until you are comfortable and keep working. I wish that I still loved this job, but after 45 years of tax seaon running my life and the constant tax changes, I am ready to take it easier. I will miss my clients, but I have lost a lot of them the past few years due to age and illness. I lost three (two from the same family) in 7 days this month. I need to buy sympathy cards by the box. Just do what you think is best for you. Bonnie

I dropped my fax line a year ago with no regrets. I plan on dropping my landline after this tax season. Right now I think that 70% of my communication is by email, 20 % by text and 10 % by phone. Actually the biggest issue is that younger clients don't check their emails.

You can change your IRS and professional contacts online. Filling out that change of address form at the post office notifies most financial institutions. When we moved, I hadn't yet gotten around to notifying Vanguard, bank, etc, but their mail started arriving at our new address. Landline may come as a package deal with your internet provider so you may just port your number. I am not comfortable doing financial anything on my cell so keep the landline for that purpose plus the fax. Also, see how cell service is at your new location before you bail on the landline. You are not addressing the really big hassles about moving (trying not to think about them?) We moved two years ago and we will NEVER do it again. It is work going through every single thing you own and deciding what the heck to do with each and every one (keep, sell, donate, recycle, junk). Then you have to do those things (pack, sell, donate, recycle, junk). You have to get the old home ready to sell (fix that drip, paint the bathroom, replace that screen, etc.) In your new place, you have to decide where to put everything and unpack it all, realize what's missing and go buy it (shower curtain hooks, door mat, electrician to install extra outlets, whatever). Take as many CPEs in January as you can because you won't have any more time. That said, it can be so worth it! We love our new home and community. As for retirement, weigh how much you love what you do against how much you love to do the things you have planned in retirement. (Definitely have plans.) It doesn't have to be all or nothing. Keep a few select clients, or work at a CPA firm just during tax season, or ditch it all and have fun doing the things you haven't had time to do. They're all good choices so you can't go wrong.

But what if they throw your letter away?

MC, you can allow popups on certain sites in Firefox. Copy the web address, then go to tools>settings>privacy & security. Scroll way down to "block pop ups" and add the site you want to allow in the exceptions box.

Perhaps this online class sponsored by CPA Practice Advisor will show me how to get my clients to fill out their Tax Organizers. This started off my day with a good belly laugh "How can you better automate client interactions? Find out tomorrow"

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!

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

Thank you for the reminder Lee!

Done

I do that every night. Clear the cache, cookies, and the history.

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!

They all assume they are entitled to that anyway!!!!!

Thanks! I'll use that for crib notes when I write our "welcome to tax season" letter for our clients. That was on this afternoon's to-do list, too.

I posted before knowing the extent of the devastating tornado damage in Arkansas (and other states). We were close, but not hit. Sorry if the post came off as cold and/or tone-deaf at such a time.

Free tax prep?

Haha, nope! I am ignoring all things tax and the pile of cr@p covering my desk at the moment. I'm doing my usual lack of Christmas planning and decorating, and am struggling with decisions on what to get everyone as gifts.

I don't see any tax ramifications in your situation. Sounds like you reimbursed your kinfolk for travel and lodging; maybe threw in some extra to express your gratitude for helping you out. They in return gifted you the pot pie for what ever reason. Unless I am overlooking something I say forget it. Glad you made it back to the forum!

I can't wait to submit a picture of my Driver's License and a selfie to a third party in order to prove who I am to the IRS. Next they will want a saliva swab to confirm my DNA is an exact match