Leaderboard

Mine go back to my first return in high school. Pertinent info from each year is entered on a s/s. So, I guess I'm a super-nerd.

I am truly sad to say that I have no memory at all of getting my EFIN or PTIN. I have them, and I renew my PTIN every year, but I don't remember the process of getting either of them. Scary.

I've got my returns back to 1970. I also have my father's returns and record pages back into the 1940's. I must be one of the ______ retentive people.

I've been fingerprinted multiple times and maybe I'm wrong but I thought you needed it submitted to do the EA background check which is performed AFTER you pass the test. I did the EA 17 years ago so maybe they no longer do that or with my memory maybe they never did. I've had to submit fingerprinting for the securities regulators multiple times so maybe that's what I'm remembering.

I don't have a lot of returns, but they aren't simple returns. And, for some reason, almost ALL of them drop off/upload/mail/deliver in some manner during one week in February. Hubby thinks it coincides with a holiday weekend when everyone gets their stuff together and them drops off the next week. So, by 12 February or 22 February at the latest, I'm officially and hopelessly behind. I have all the tax returns I can prepare from February through mid-October. It depresses me. And, it infuriates my clients that dropped off five months ago. But if they were the last person that dropped off that February week, their return is going to be prepared in October. I like extensions. I can earn more money in ten months than in three. I can work with people, help them plan or start that new business or finance college or... And, I think I've convinced most, or at least many, of my clients that extensions are good so their returns aren't prepared by a sleep-deprived preparer. But my clients are not happy about the long turn-around times. I read someplace about a preparer who schedules his drop offs just like he schedules his appointments. He schedules each client so he can have a short turn-around time. I wonder if I could convince my clients to do that? Probably not. I work in Fairfield County, CT, home of type-A personalities.

"Ernst & Young employees in the U.S. were upset Tuesday to discover their paycheck deposits from last Friday had been reversed after a glitch at its payroll processing company ADP. In some cases, the problems may have led to overdrafts on some EY U.S. employees’ bank accounts. “Our payroll vendor erroneously reversed EY’s July 15 payroll impacting our US employees and we are urgently working with them to correct the error,” said a spokesperson for the firm in an email to Accounting Today. “Late fees, penalties or other charges they may have incurred as a result of this error will be covered.” ADP confirmed the problem originated in its system. “We can confirm that we experienced an error that caused a payment reversal for a group of U.S. employees of one of our clients,” said a statement from ADP. “We understand the urgency of this issue and our team is working swiftly to resolve this to ensure employees receive their pay as quickly as possible. Later in the day, on Tuesday afternoon, an ADP spokesperson said the problem has been resolved: “As an update, we have resolved the error and have completed processing with our banking partners. All transactions are expected to process by end of business day today. Availability of funds is dependent on each employee's personal banking provider.” The problems affected approximately 55,000 EY employees in the U.S., according to the Financial Times. Late in the day, after the fix was announced, some employees said they were still experiencing problems, while some reported they had been paid double." Well that will remove some of the glitter from ADP's image.

I've been doing some reading and this pdf came up: http://daviswillms.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/ten_things_davis_willms_2018_updated.28475652.pdf Here is the IRS code he links to that I'm getting at 652(a) so you don't actually have a click on it: Subject to subsection (b), the amount of income for the taxable year required to be distributed currently by a trust described in section 651 shall be included in the gross income of the beneficiaries to whom the income is required to be distributed, whether distributed or not. There was a discussion last year that you can only deduct on the 1041 the income actually distributed and that is completely false. Per this attorney on a Simple Trust the 65 days to pay it out isn't applicable as they do not actually have had to pay it out to take the distribution deduction. The 65 day rule only applies to Complex Trusts and Estates. I just found this interesting as I've had attorney's and CPAs argue this isn't true. Several years ago I had an attorney freak out that I was taking a deduction on money he hadn't actually distributed.

When I applied as an E.A. in 1984, we didn't need the fingerprints. I think that all of us "old timers" were grandfathered in when the started fingerprinting later on. They did do a background check though.

Yep, my first ones were during high school too. Not a big deal since it was only 2 sheets of paper per year for many of the early years - one for federal, one for state. I can't claim super-nerd status as I don't have any spreadsheets.

It's just me and I use a spreadsheet. I start with last years sheet, so it has all the names. One of the columns is for status. I only use a few, such as can do, waiting, need 8879, extended and done. More could be added based what you need. You could also add a column with date received, or latest status, but I don't find that necessary for me. The column has filters, so I can quickly see which clients pertain to each status. I also use countif function that I can tell at a glance how many are in each status. I also have it calculate was to what % of days are left in tax season, and the % of returns what are finished. For me, Excel is much less cumbersome that using tax software status sheets.

Funny how people who receive more usually don't complain.

I never remember getting fingerprinted.

I remember getting finger printed by an IRS agent at a CSEA seminar way back when. What it was for "sad to say", I have no idea.

I had this happen to a client with is 2019 return; it rejected because he was 'dead'. Fun phone call to tell him about it! He had to go to SS, prove his identity, and complete a form (I'm not at the office now and can't remember the name or number of the form) saying that he wasn't dead and paper file his return with the same.

Employers can also be at risk of they allow DD to something other than an account only their employee controls. (Not something most consider until a second person gets the wages and the employee says they were not paid.)

Yikes. Employers are ultimately liable as they cannot third party their liability away. Both the employees and employers will spend some likely uncompensated time investigating and resolving. It is one of the risks of using a third party.

I cannot speak with IRS personal knowledge, but many who I have come across over the last few decades, will share generalities on actions which are done to protect self/department/office interests versus "real world" needs. In the "old days", many thought this was because some who even made it to decision power were biding time / building resume, towards personal practice. Complication/Byzantine means profits in PP, and life time employment whether in PP or not. An example is 94x electronic filing "ease". Over complication and lack of accepting and using de facto standards is a real issue. IRS is not alone, see examples in CA such as their payroll process, EDD process, etc. Contracts for custom software which, after many years, is not completed/functional. SSA, on the other hand, has easy efiling, and their MMREF file structure has been adopted (albeit sometimes oddly altered) by many other tax agencies.

The IRS has so many systems that don't talk to each other that I am not surprised. There could have been a data entry error when the paper filed return was entered.