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I love starting the SOL. I advise filing any time there is any question. Filing now not only starts the SOL but means it's done when information is relatively fresh in minds. Hate getting IRS letters demanding tax due that isn't actually due, just because proof of same was not filed in a return.

Nothing much more frustrating than being hung up on by someone you don't want to talk to. My friends, there are your dangling participles for the day... maybe for the year... for you to ponder on... You're welcome.

How true; which only leads to more work due to a simple act of negligence. I would much rather be safe than sorry!

Hey, if one can fake ethics and honor, the sky's the limit! Most of the "ethics" taught is nonsense and easily gamed for those of a mind to so do. Best I ever sat through was a long conversation (yes, a conversation with two instructors and a room full of 100+ tax pros) on gray areas. How to recognize when "helping a client" slowly pushes you into grayer and grayer areas (client doing this on purpose or by accident). Recognizing hidden places for conflicts of interest. There was nothing cut-and-dried in those two hours, and plenty of disagreement in minutiae, but it was the best and most thought-provoking ethics ever. I still think back to it and those same thought patterns have helped me recognize several gnarly situations and back out before they got too gnarly.

I scan everything, and electrons stack real high before they need more space. My electronic records go back to start of scanning. Paper? I no longer keep paper for anything except 8879-type sig pages (in ONE file folder by tax year and one folder for state pages; scanned as a whole and shredded after three years) and POAs. POAs because so often I need to include copies (or fax them) when dealing with a new agent or issue. No client original docs of any kind stored, except for one of my daughters who doesn't have enough room at her apartment, and at her specific request. With electronic records, I was able to provide copies of adoption papers to a former client who needed them after originals were lost in a move. It did take me a few minutes of digging in the old records to find them.

Gosh, Yardley; that's a tough one. Finally though, a question that doesn't require exhaustive research by the estate/trust wizards hereabouts. I believe IRS has already ruled for the prosecution ("yea"). However, many hair-doers as well as other independent contractors feel it's a subjective question open to debate . Lots tend to be "agin" while I'm obliged to argue "fer" and the damages are occasionally brutal (for both). "Such is life"; as the old man used to say.

Doing the same here. Send that proof of payment by mail. One client who made payment (for amended return; unexpected K-1 received late) included check for a couple bucks of post-4/15 interest.

Sometimes, I've found that just asking the question out loud, or typing it on a forum, helps me find the answer without any input.

Unbelievable, you have clients who aren't 100 % honest? I am sure they just weren't able to remember?

PIA isn't new - it's been around for years as I'm a subscriber. I did a $79 for 3 years deal last time. I use a VPN because my client who works at the FBI, my nephew who works at Apple in Cupertino and a firm I work with said to do it. Plus my wife is required to use a VPN 100% of the time for work at a major University. It slows my speed down from about 200mb to 170mb but upload drops to 20mb. Neither of those impact my life at all. The primary problem is that RingCentral won't let you log into your administration accounts via the VPN. I can still run all my phone calls through them while on the VPN. I've used Drake, TaxWise and ATX on the VPN and never had a problem. My client who works for the FBI said you should assume anything that is "encypted" has been hacked. While I use encryption for PDF files, he doesn't allow me to do that with his files. My nephew at Apple smiled when I told him this and said it was a rather safe assumption to make. His opinion was encryption is safer than unencrypted but it's still not safe. I've had multiple people tell me the document services that CPAs love to use aren't really much safer than just emailing the documents. Basically if someone is smart enough to get your emails, they are smart enough to figure out how to get around the encryption.

Very interesting discussion. Thanks!

Thanks, Eric, Medlin and Abby. Excellent Advice.

Thanks to all. Very informative. Tom Longview, TX

Every time I've tried a VPN, the internet slows more than is acceptable to me, even though they always say it shouldn't slow your internet. But I've only tried that type of VPN at home, never at work. Using a privacy VPN while traveling is probably a good idea, as is avoiding all public wifi and just using mobile data. I use an add-on in Firefox that forces websites to https, instead of just http, for added security.

For other reasons (allowing auto failover or sharing between two connections) I started using a Firewalla router. Great stats, don’t panic at how many incoming hits you will get. Plenty of security options including vpn support. No fees after purchase of the router (unless you need something you cannot setup on your own such as a vendor vpn). Personally, I don’t use a vpn. I also do not use public connections. I am not worried about the isp selling the ip addresses I visit. Frankly, privacy is unobtanium, but security is still easily obtainable starting with monitoring what the grey matter tells the rest of the body to do. Software and hardware can help when the grey matter slips up.

The only time I use a VPN is when I'm traveling and using free hotel WiFi which for me isn't that often. I used Mullvad VPN during a recent trip to Boston, spent less than $6 for the month, and cancelled the service when I got back home. I have never had issues connecting to any websites but it is an extra server to route all of your traffic through, so it can potentially be slower. To directly answer your question, nope, I haven't heard of PIA. In my opinion, the main benefits of using a VPN are privacy related. You can keep your browsing from your ISP because all they see is encrypted traffic between sites and the VPN server. If you don't trust your ISP to not sell your metadata to the highest bidder, then a VPN is a good way to avoid that. Just make sure to pick a trustworthy VPN provider because they're the ones who will have that data instead of your ISP. In terms of general security, most of the web now uses HTTPS anyway, so all of that traffic is already encrypted and secure. Transmitting things like credit cards and passwords isn't improved by using a VPN. Some VPN providers have additional security measures that protect you from visiting harmful sites or downloading harmful files, but a little common sense about those things is a lot more effective. There are some things that I think should be higher priority for online security: Don't reuse your passwords. Create secure passwords and use a password manager to remember them for you. Even though it's a pain sometimes, use 2 Factor Authentication wherever it's supported. The type that uses an Authenticator app (Authy, Microsoft Authenticator, Google Authenticator, etc) is better than relying on text messages, but the text messages are a lot better than a username/password alone. If privacy is your main concern, install an ad blocker extension for your browser. uBlock Origin is a good example. An unbelievable amount of tracking happens as you browse the web, and there's a lot of money in knowing who you are as an ad target. A VPN generally doesn't do anything about this, because it's all happening in your browser which is communicating with the site you're visiting. Encrypting the traffic through a VPN only means it's being securely sent directly to Facebook, for example. An ad blocker will shut down most of that tracking and keep it from being shared with the sites you're visiting. EDIT: I didn't realize this before, but Mullvad VPN, and probably other VPN providers include ad blocking and anti-tracking features which would be similar to what uBlock Origin does. uBlock Origin is free, though.

This makes me really angry, because aside from the potential harm to the public, the programs and monitoring that came about because of previous ethical violations actually costs me a lot of money in peer review fees and annual enrollment fee into the program that administers those reviews.

Of all the exams to cheat on....

Yes, you need to file. I had a client with a 1099 B with an even trade; no gain and no loss. They called him on it because they only had a record of the sale; no record of the basis. And, we had filed a return because of other issues but they billed him for tax on the total sales price of the stock exchange that my assistant failed to report.

Come on, Rita. What's wrong with you. A nice, elderly couple...fixed income...probably have a garden in their back yard that they tend to. Let them be.

You didn't say what entirely makes up the $21K of AGI but will assume since you used "AGI" and have input the data, that the $21K includes only the taxable portion of their social security. As far as the Sch D/8949 activity, the determination of gross income for the filing requirement includes capital gains but not capital losses, so your client may still have a filing requirement if they have losses offsetting the gains in your calculation AGI. You must use only the gains in the filing requirement calculation. There is a whole list of items in Chart C of the 1040 instructions that lists other situations that would require filing. Probably the most common for older retired folks are if they had any distributions from an HSA, or Archer or Medicare MSA, even if those were used for qualified medical bills that has zero taxable effect. Obviously this doesn't consider the state requirements either, so you'll have to check that also.

Filing does preserve the 3-year SOL and makes identity theft harder (or catches identity theft since the last time they filed, so they can act on it now). And, the state may be a lower requirement (isn't IL only $33 of income?! CT is a higher threshold than federal, but ANY amount of CT w/h requires a filing or a $50 penalty).

Been try to get through for 2 days. Finally got a call back appointment. Answered the phone, accepted the call, only to have the computer hang up on me. GRRRRRRRR at IRS.....GRRRRRRR at ENQ Tom Longview, TX

"Ernst & Young, one of the top accounting firms in the world, is being fined $100 million by federal regulators after admitting its employees cheated on their ethics exams. For years, the firm's auditors had cheated to pass key exams that are needed for certified public accountant licenses, the Securities and Exchange Commission found. Ernst & Young also had internal reports about the cheating but didn't disclose the wrongdoing to regulators during the investigation. "It's simply outrageous that the very professionals responsible for catching cheating by clients cheated on ethics exams of all things," Gurbir S. Grewal, director of the SEC's Enforcement Division, said in a release." After Enron, Worldcom and Global Crossings should we be surprised. The pressure on partners in large CPA Firms to obtain and keep clients apparently creates a corrosive atmosphere

"In February, a U.S. accounting watchdog fined PricewaterhouseCoopers’s Canadian partnership $750,000 for weak controls that saw more than 1,200 employees participate in “improper answer sharing” in internal tests from at least 2016 to early 2020. Rival Big Four auditor KPMG paid a $50 million penalty in 2019 after the SEC found it had used stolen information to prepare for regulatory inspections, while some of its auditors “manipulated an internal server” to lower the pass mark in training exams." Surprise, Surprise !

Here's the spin: "Because it's their job to hold others accountable, Ernst & Young — one of the "big four" accounting firms — says it holds itself to a high standard of ethics. In fact, the firm's entire global code of conduct is based on an "ethical" framework. "At EY, nothing is more important than our integrity and our ethics. These core values are at the forefront of everything we do," Brendan Mullin, a spokesperson for Ernst & Young, said in an email to NPR. "Our response to this unacceptable past behavior has been thorough, extensive, and effective." Many of the employees interviewed during the federal investigation said they knew cheating was a violation of the company's code of conduct but did it anyway because of work commitments or the fact that they couldn't pass training exams after multiple tries."