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I'm still not sure. And, I had a client call this week that inherited her mother's IRA and asked me. She'll have to wait until after 17 October. I really can't remember everything that's passed over the last three tax seasons, especially which IRS regs are final. And, so little published since Covid, just FAQs!

I posted this question on FB in a couple of groups that I am in. The answer is basically, you must file both - as Katherine indicated. But ultimately, the offer has to be for the amount of the sales tax still due. Similar to payroll tax, it's someone else's money that was collected in trust. So we may be able to avoid the penalties and interest, but the sales tax cannot be compromised.

PM sent

They can still deduct the travel, they just have to do the mileage log and keep all the receipts and take the percentages. No shortcuts for bikers. Tom Longview, TX

If the disabled person has no other income, it is likely the first cent each year the parents spend on the disabled person makes them provide enough support to be more than half. Unless there is money or goods provided by someone else. The disabled person likely has personal property at the parent home, and may even spend time there, so it remains the disabled person’s home (like college students away from home).

I don't think the support part is an issue. The rules state that the dependent cannot provide more than half of their own support. SSI is not considered provided by the dependent. Welfare (ie medicaid) is not support provided by the dependent. Both are provided by the government. So I think the TP is OK there as they pay all of the cost of keeping up the principal home that the child would be temporarily away from for medical care. The problem is - what is a temporary absence for medical care? I looked up a couple of cases and the IRS standard is "is it reasonable that the person will return to the parent's home after treatment"? The court seems to agree with the IRS standard, but gives wide latitude to the taxpayer and is careful not to make the IRS or the tax court the decider of the facts and circumstances that would determine when or if the dependent will return. The court seems to say that if there is a chance that the treatments at the facility could lead to the child returning to the parent's home, then the absence is temporary. My aggressive take - if the facility were to close down, the child would return to the parent's home (having no where else to go), therefore that is the child's principal place of abode. Therefore dependent. My conservative take - the child will never recover from the medical conditions and will always need care that the parents can no longer provide in their home. Therefore not a dependent. My practical take - we are only talking about a small amount of credit for the parents every year. As long as the parents are alive and together, filing status is not an issue. But what if one of them passes, the other might benefit greatly from HOH status. Thanks for letting me barf out my thought process. Feel free to criticize if it is warranted. Tom Longview, TX

I feel the same way about Quicken 6

Also note that if you want to be persnickety, many dividends (and cap gain dists) are weighted towards end-of-year payments, so to be correct you can't just apportion. You actually have to look at the dividends paid with each monthly or (usually) quarterly or semi-annual payment. Only payments before DOD are taxed on the final 1040; the rest go on the 1041. Yes, the only thing to do is to charge a lot for these returns. They are pains-taking.

If you do not trust your software vendor, you are likely using the wrong software vendor... You cannot stop the vendor from adding something, since it could be tied in with something you have to have... The issue, as I have been told countless times, is some are forced to Intuit for reasons they cannot control. I was just writing with a likely now not former customer, who was wanting to switch because their accountant told them they would only take data from Intuit backups. Since it was a long time customer of mine, I was bold and asked who works for who(m)?, and it is entirely possible for any accountant/provider to take an EOY ledger to get figures from, with only one figure per account needing to be entered... by the accountant/provider's likely low wage data entry person. Even for once a month, one figure per account is not too much to ask of a service provider to bang on their keyboard. There are plenty of provider's looking for work that do not require pre formatted data so they can import, print, and bill. Some (like all here) actually review the data for "looks out of place" issues.

I have a slew of QB updates that I never installed. Now I never will! Thanks for the warning.

I still use QB 2003 desktop on my Win10 computer. I have the install key so every time I change computers I can re-install without QB knowing about it. I turn off the internet when I install, turn off automatic updates within QB, and then turn the internet back on. Never checks for updates, never changes anything about how it works. I don't use it for payroll, just my own bookkeeping. No hiccups. Never an issue. Intuit can bite me, I am not paying for a new version every year that does nothing more for me. Tom Longview, TX

This is the title of a 2 hour online class sponsored by the OSCPA being held on Monday