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Each day starts with the best intentions though. "This is the day that I cruise through a bunch of returns." That thought is quickly dashed. :-)

Had a client yesterday who sent me back one signed 8879 and two others in a separate message unsigned. When I asked him to sign those too, he told me he didn't get them. Another client asked if he had to return the whole return after he signed it (the one I sent labeled "For your files" as distinct from the first message I sent labeled "Docs to sign and return.") Next year we are sending an IQ test along with the client questionnaire.

I reach my limit at about 5 1/2 hours so I consider 3 returns a good day

One this year; adult child of client. Married, W2 job, new twins and mom stays home so no child care. Sounds like an easy one, yes? Stock options with basis missing (at least not ISO's with two bases) Consulting for dad Consulting for mom Unemployment for mom from before twins were born. The condo they moved out of for a bigger place (with twins on the way) is now a rental. "Repairs" for rental neatly listed but capital and expense intermixed and had to be teased apart. Partnership K-1 Various carry-forwards from 2020 return - easy except he sent me the wrong file three times. Signature pages don't help get carry-forward figures. This one took substantially longer than one would have thought, based on the description at the top. Typical for my practice. Oh, and the parents? Another "Simple" return; they sold their house (a duplex) and weren't sure how to handle the sale because of the rental portion. 2020 NOL not carried forward. Depreciation on all manner of items never taken. Form 3115 needed, as well as amended 2020.

I've never done 20 in a day in my entire career. Different type of clientele, maybe? The returns that I have in now and the ones yet to arrive will each take hours of my time, and that's not including scanning, assembly, and possibly meeting with the clients.

Even decades ago at HRB Premium, my top day was 10 returns. 4-8 more common. 4 as the years went by, because none of my clients had financial lives that got LESS complicated. Now it seems to take 3 days for any return. Even the college kids of clients work in MA while at school, self-employed Schedule C at home in CT, and commute to NYC for an internship, then dabble in crypto (find out what "earn" means on her statement), has a K-1 from the trust her grandparents set up for her, and got her first installment on the Fulbright, oh and her FTC is over $300 so Form 1116, and unemployment; more fun trying to make her parent's health insurance policy that she's on (CT employer of parent) fit on her MA return. I can't read the required but teeny tiny DCN number on her NY driver's license that she texted me a picture; took two tries to get her to send the back side with the DCN and more tries to get readable texts. Taking her phone calls when she gets stuck paying 1Q2022 ES online to MA, where I have only two clients so have to look up the process again. If she wants a paper copy, there's printing/collating/packaging/mailing 150 pages. 20 of those easy returns take way more than 24 hours, so there's no sleeping at night or any other time! Extensions are my business model. I can make more money in 10 months than I can in the 2 or fewer months with corrected consolidated 1099s still arriving and Letters 6419 and 6475 still arriving and Forms SSA-1099 still arriving. My hold stack is huge! Besides, all my clients are in DisneyWorld or Costa Rica or someplace on spring break where they can't get me their missing documents until after 17 April.

Since about 3pm, it has been utter lunacy here. I can't hang up the phone without it ringing again. People who have been agitating for signature documents are only signing 1 of the 3 sent, despite being told in the email with the docs that there are three required. Not optional; required. Colleagues calling who need advice or calming down or both. People showing up at the door, without warning, with papers to drop off. Several of my foreign-based clients decided to send docs too. I'm ready to crawl under my desk with a bottle of whiskey and a bag of Skittles and not come out until May. Except I gave up Skittles (and more) for Lent, so I can't even do that. I really want to scream right now. Rant over. Mostly. For a while, at least.

If I ever manage to do 12 or 20 returns in a day, they'd be the "one W2 and $3 in bank interest only" types. I spend 2-4 hours on each return, not including emailing the client telling them they still owe me documents X, Y, and Z.

And, those "simple" college kids' returns, don't forget kiddie tax! So, I can't complete any of the kids' returns until I prepare the parents' returns. So, a family of parents, two kids, and a trust for each kid takes days, not hours. Add a partnership or S-corporation to the parents, and it can be weeks to clean up the bookkeeping, drag all the missing forms out of the family, and prepare all six connected returns before those two "easy" kids' returns are complete. And, nobody remembers to give me their Car Tax.

We are in farm country. I would do schedule f. Keep it simple, unless you want to charge for doing another schedule c. We have several farmers who raise herding dogs along with the usual farm animals and use f. But there is more than one way to skin a cat

The qualification for farming is the production for food or fiber. Cats would only qualify if you are making kitty wool sweaters or supplying a weird BBQ joint.

Several years ago, my main tax work day was Saturday. I could schedule 5-6 appointments in the office and knock them all out if the client had all their documents. I allocated 1 hour for each return with a break between every 2 to catch up on efile, phone calls, email, etc. Can't do that any more. Tom Longview, TX

Some years ago I met another EA who did 800 returns a year with only his wife helping part time copying and assembling. He did it all in 5 months and took the rest of the year off. His office had a bathroom with a shower and a Murphy bed. He worked 13 hours a day and lived in his office Monday thru Friday. He only went home Saturday and Sunday evenings. Frankly, I thought he was crazy!

A typical client will have usually a k1 or two, maybe a few rentals, a fair amount of investment income (w/ foreign tax, 199, sales, etc.), W2s if not retired, a random schedule C (because they are often profs who consult as outside business), the younger ones have kids, older ones retirement distributions (many exempt from State tax because of an agreement between the State and the governing board for the Universities), maybe an energy credit of some sort, stock gift to charity, etc. There are, of course, returns that take me hours and hours. I'm super lucky because I have someone who pre-enters many of the returns and gets better every year at doing so ... it really helps me get to the meat of the return after I quickly proof the data entry, and I have an amazing staff who do all the scanning, copying, delivery to clients, etc. I think this is part of the reason I can sometimes knock out several. I also don't take client meetings (with very few exceptions) during the season. I don't need someone to hand me a document and tell me it's their 1099 ;). If they want to do that, they can, but it has to be early in the season or on extension. Corporates/partnerships take much longer, and I'm not always hitting the 20 on personals (as I said, until this season it was 12, which I could pretty consistently hit). It might be a pipe dream ... and it's more likely on a weekend day when no one is interrupting me. It's just the straight math for what I have to do to finish everything in house by the 15th :(. We'll see. There is someone on the board who by himself does 1000/season. I think his name is JIm. Does anyone else remember that? I'd like to know his system!

I'm so sorry. I feel you. It's pretty bad. I find that I'm not holding my tongue very well. A client called me out of my office (staff came in and said 'client x says her return isn't accurate') to tell me something preposterous about why her refund should be larger (some 'folklore' tax rule). I looked her straight in the eye and said, 'who told you that, your hairdresser'? After a moment of stunned silence (from both her and me) where I thought she might take her things and leave for ever, she burst out laughing and apologized. Another client emailed me 3 times this past Sunday morning and texted me twice (call me crazy, but I do not respond to email from the sanctuary). After the service, I finally responded to him with 'why aren't you in Church'. No response, but he did send additional emails later in the day, so I assume he's still okay. I might not get so lucky next time. I need some 'be nice' pills.

MPAI; most people are idiots. On top of which, it's all too frequently the higher-IQ clients who don't read the (very clear!) instructions because they know better. And then claim "I never got X" when you have a reply from them quoting X. Anyone see the Dune movie? (I didn't, but read the book a gazillion years ago.) That Bene Gesserit box thing - take your hand out and you die? I'd like to use that on clients; they try to do anything before reading the directions, they die. Or at least have pain - as much pain as they cause us! (A girl can dream, can't she?)

If the client's attorney is stating it needs to be filed, a resolution to liquidate may have been done. There are certainly legal reasons to file it. Ask the attorney why it needs to be filed. Ask the attorney why he didn't file it as part of the liquidation.

I can't do 20 a day. My partner tells me I mess up a simple return(what is that these days) quicker that a hard one.

I too have uttered, "What the hell was I thinking?" when reviewing a prior year return I did in the heat of battle. It's always a wake up call.

I think I'm going to go with Schedule C. These pets instead of any kind of herding/farm animal or livestock, and there are no hand-spinners or BBQ places around here that would consider the cats as source material. Not too much fur off of a kitten before it's placed, either.

You guys are so cool and awesome. Wish I could meet all of you sometime in the future!

I know that car salespeople receive "spiffs" on a 1099. In that particular case, it is other income not subject to s/e tax. So, I think it depends on your particular situation.

love how these companies can't be bothered to put the codes in - leave it to the tax preparer.

I spent 15 minutes tonight trying to figure out why schedule A infor wasn't flowing thru to the 8829. There's a box somewhere......

Glad to see this post because last month I made a blunder on a NYS return that was so basic for a class of clients that I handle flawlessly on a regular basis. I only found it because of a local return that kept getting rejected. I’ll amend it but I was hard on myself for not being more thorough in my review. And the embarrassment telling the client, that’s the worst.

Right there with you all. One of the things that also happens to me is when I'm working and see a blunder made on the prior year's return, like completely missing the kiddie tax or some such thing.

I always think that with enough espresso I can power through 20 returns a day at full capacity ... until I spend 15 minutes of my day (that I will never get back) trying to figure out why there's no place to enter/flow through the basis from a 1065 K1 to form 7203, which I actually went to the trouble to manually added to the return (the form adds automatically for an 1120s k1, of course, as appropriate). DUH moment didn't come for a full 15 minutes. Called myself an idiot, deleted the erroneously added form, and finalized the return. Oy Vey! I hope I'm not the only one.

Others procrastination does not equal emergency on my part. A few years ago I decided that clients that wanted to drop off/place docs into portal after a certain date (this year it was March 31st), I inform them that I do not have the time to complete their return by the due date. I am willing to file an extension for them and I can start on those returns after May 1st. Decision is up to them what to do. Most agree. The others can run to other offices and cause them problems. My health, life, sanity is not worth the stress. Not to mention, in order to provide a correct return, I need time and sleep.

Yes, but they always have a form to prolong the pain! No form, no way to collect $.

Thanks for looking. I was assuming since they had no income tax there would be no tax on a real estate transaction, but the ways governments can find to get money out of non-residents, and even citizen/residents, are myriad and convoluted so I thought that I would ask.

Back then Dune was my favorite scifi series

Look at the 8990. The K-1 Entity had Excess Business Interest Expense and were limited. The partner needs to fill the 8990. I am not sure exactly how to make it flow through to the partner, but I will be working on this as well today. Time to pull out the books and see what I can find. Tom Longview, TX

I would put that on Sch C. I don't see any connection to cats and farming because cats are not livestock.

A long time. Of course if inflation hangs around, maybe not that long

Assets removed from an S corp are essentially treated as if sold for FMV. https://www.thetaxadviser.com/issues/2011/apr/casestudy-apr2011.html

Hope they both have mild cases, and hope you can stay healthy!!

Maybe you should do a wellness check on him - he may have had a heart attack!

Could the credit card on file have expired?

Everything is tagged in the Master File using the first 4 or 5 letters, only, of the surname. I have two couples (parents, married son) from India, whose names go on for several paragraphs (maybe that's a tiny exaggeration) and while Drake will truncate on its own, back in my ATX days I just whacked off letters until it fit and filed. Never had an issue.

On our calendar for tomorrow is an all-day event: "Everyone gets an extension!" Every client whose return is not complete and ready to submit will be put on extension. We'll send them payment coupons *if* we've gotten that far. Not our problem if folks who owe didn't send us their docs in time. Our cutoff for completion by 4/15 is 3/15. That means all docs in-house. Nothing outstanding (missing statement, missing basis, missing DL dates, missing whatever). Which nearly no one meets. But it's in our letter every season, too, so it's not a surprise to anyone. We'll spend the day prepping and submitting extensions for everyone on the list noted above, and then move one with the season, completing as many returns as we can without regard to the 4/15 (18, 19, whatever) date. When I started getting seriously hard-nosed about extensions, a lot of the season-end pressure evaporated. I still work hard, and long, but without that horrible feeling of "gotta get more done!" that hounds us.

Thank you, Abby Normal. I've never heard that about the UBTI before, so learned something new today.

From the link: Tax considerations An IRA is an exempt entity separate from the beneficial owner of the IRA and can be subject to taxation on its own. UBTI is subject to taxation in all varieties of retirement accounts, such as IRAs, retirement plans like Keoghs, and health savings accounts (HSA). When total positive UBTI across all applicable investments held in a retirement account equals $1,000 or more, then Form 990-T must be filed. Sounds like fun, right? Tell client to get rid of these investments in an IRA because they're not good for IRAs.

Count me in as well!!

Been there, done that.

You are definitely not alone - lots of good company around here!

"People are dumbernsh*t." - @Donnarae

We have to have something to dream about in the future, right?

There's no need to call ATX. When you do the short year rollover, it can easily be efiled because it's a separate return, as it needs to be.

Do NOT paper file it. Roll it over as I showed you and then efile it. I do this frequently.

Why does no one know how to do short year rollovers in ATX? Here are my notes: 1) Go to Rollover Manager and click on the Last Month/Quarter tab. 2) Select the return. 3) Click Rollover. 4) Once you go back to the Return Manager, the return will contain (Rolled Over) in the Name. The return will roll over the data as if you were rolling over from the prior year.