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Hey, once you figure out how to fake "ethics" you've got it made! Which always makes me chuckle at the hours-of-ethics cpe requirements. Either you're (trying your best to be) honest and moral, or you're lying about being honest and moral.

I've seen this for years, and figured it was so each spouse would know about liability - and if one took the other's letter, then they have mail fraud as well as non-payment of taxes for which to go after him/her.

I worked for a regional firm as auditor for a couple of years after college. (After interviewing at Pricewaterhouse, where I felt completely overwhelmed with their better than you attitude.) We had a fairly large company that we audited. They had a parent company with 4 subsidiaries. I learned how money was laundered, how profit sharing was manipulated, and how this company's employees could steal money on the lo from the company and customers, as long as it was "immaterial." My job was just to produce paper with checkmarks that indicated everything was good - or any impairment was immaterial. Their fav word.

Assuming both spouses live under the same roof, if one doesn't want to pay they'll "misplace" their spouses letter as well.

I don't use social media because of their excessive data mining which is used by hackers and other purveyors of malware.

These folks (Corvee) keep sending me solicitations to buy their planning software (which may be very good, but I'm not interested). But they also send me links to blog posts. This one, on GoFundMe fundraisers, may be useful as a client handout (email-out). Corvee GoFundMe article For those who won't click links, here is the text (missing all the nice formatting): Over the past decade, GoFundMe has turned into the biggest crowdfunding platform there is. Many of the fundraisers on GoFundMe are charitable in nature, so it’s natural that people would wonder: are my GoFundMe donations tax deductible? Like many questions involving taxes: it depends. If you are donating to a qualified 501(c) organization that has set up a GoFundMe page, then yes. There is a list of certified charities so donors can know if they are making a tax-deductible contribution. If it’s not a qualified 501(c), then it’s considered a personal donation and therefore is not tax deductible. Deductible Vs. Non-Deductible Donations on GoFundMe GoFundMe actually started out as CreateAFund in 2008. It later morphed into GoFundMe in 2010. As a platform to raise funds for almost any cause, GoFundMe donations are considered personal in nature, unless they’re made to a 501(c) organization that has registered on the site. All donations made to personal GoFundMe pages, as opposed to specific 501(c) charity fundraisers, are considered personal gifts — which are not guaranteed to be tax deductible. It can be confusing because you may be doing a charitable thing on GoFundMe, but just because a gift is charitable doesn’t make it automatically eligible for tax relief. Easily Save Clients Thousands in Taxes Scan client returns. Uncover savings. Export a professional tax plan. All in minutes. Request a Demo Look out for other unintended tax consequences from direct contributions to individuals. Because these gifts are not considered charitable, giving large amounts over the annual exclusion gift amount may trigger a requirement to file a form 709 and report the gift amounts. The recipient themselves will not be taxed on the money received. How it Works: GoFundMe raises money for individuals, groups of individuals or organizations. Among these, there are two types of fundraisers: a standard campaign or a Certified Charity campaign. With the standard campaigns, many GoFundMe organizers are individuals who have raised money for a cause and can deposit the money raised into their own personal bank account. While many of the personal causes are good, worthy causes, such as money raised for tuition, medical expenses, funerals, etc.,these gifts are being made to people as opposed to registered charities and as such they generally are not tax deductible. A Charity Campaign, meanwhile, collects donations that go directly to a 501(c)(3) organization. In these cases, the GoFundMe organizer doesn’t handle the money; instead, the funds are sent directly to the charity via the PayPal Giving Fund. This special fund was set up by GoFundMe to facilitate gifts to registered charities. Donors receive receipts from the PayPal Giving Fund, which allows them to claim possible tax deductions. Find More Deductions With Tax Planning Software How Giving on GoFundMe Works Donations to nonprofits are usually tax deductible. The IRS allows you to deduct up to 50% of your adjusted gross income (AGI) if the donation is made in cash, although 20% and 30% limits sometimes apply. For 2020 and 2021, the 50% limitation is suspended, allowing individuals to donate up to 100% of their AGI. Thus, giving to specific 501(c)(3) organizations on GoFundMe could prove to be a good way to reduce tax burden. Just be sure to get your receipt from the PayPal Giving Fund. Remember that personal donations (meaning direct contributions to individuals) through GoFundMe are likely not tax deductible. To claim any possible deduction, itemize deductions on your tax return using Schedule A (Form 1040). Typically, charitable donations could be eligible for deductions if they are given to: A religious organization Federal, state and local governments Certain war veterans’ groups Nonprofit schools and hospitals Charitable contributions typically not deductible include donations to: Foreign organizations Political parties, action committees (PACs) or fundraisers Individuals Foreign governments For-profit schools or hospitals Social and sports clubs Labor unions Homeowners’ associations Note that a large percentage of donations on the GoFundMe platform are to individuals, making them non-deductible. What About GoFundMe.org? There can also be donations made directly to GoFundMe.org, which is a separate entity from GoFundMe. GoFundMe.org is a 501(c)3 public charity that is independent of GoFundMe with a separate board of directors and leadership. While it works closely with GoFundMe, GoFundMe.org cannot receive payments from any GoFundMe campaign except for fundraisers for which GoFundMe.org is identified as the beneficiary. So, you can make a tax-deductible donation to GoFundMe.org that is promoted on the GoFundMe platform. The federal tax ID number of GoFundMe.org is 81-2279757. GoFundMe, however, is not a qualified 501(c)(3) charitable organization, so be sure you check before you give!

Just using common sense, a term like "joint and several responsibility" comes to mind. Separate letters also make it easier for the collector to claim both parties knew (less chance of successfully claiming innocence). IOW, follow the money, the collector wants to preserve best chance of getting paid, and is not sure who has the deepest pockets.

Here is one theory that shows up in an online search: "The IRS sends letters to both to make sure both spouses know about the liability because, on a joint return, each of you is liable for the full amount. If they only send a letter to one spouse, it's possible that spouse would not pay the tax and would also not tell the other spouse about owing the money."

We called it "ticked and tied". Everything that tied out to the source documents was tick marked on the trial balance. Tom Longview, TX

We called it 'ticking and checking'.

I need to get the band back together.

Same sort of auditing is in place for SEC and FINRA. 30 years ago we had an SEC auditor in our offices and he tells us our books are clean, he can see it in 20 minutes because they are simple but still had 2 people auditing them for 2 weeks. His example was Prudential Financial but he said something like "we have auditors in their offices year round, we spend weeks figuring out where money was coming / going and by the time we figure it out they change their methods and we have to start over." Personally the FED audit is the one that should matter and the Fed knew Silicon Valley was about to blow up a year before it did and they did nothing about it. We had a former New York Fed Chairman who under Congressional testimony declared he'd never been a bank regulator. The New York Fed IS the primary bank regulator. We had a FINRA audit with 2 guys - one decided a client's kids were stealing from their mother's account and I was liable ($10k per month was being wired to her nursing home). After 6 hours the other auditor looked at it for 5 minutes and pointed to the line where they deposited more money than they withdrew. He declares "why would the daughters deposit an additional $500k into an account where they are stealing $10k per month?" Our last SEC (20 years ago) audit we had two auditors for Monday and Tuesday and one flies home. On Wednesday morning the remaining auditor looks at a money market account and wants proof we'd sent a prospectus to every client of the firm for that account. I told her we didn't and BLOW UP. All day Wednesday she's in conference calls to the home office. Thursday same thing and on Thursday afternoon she schedules us a conference call with management for the next day. On Thursday our secretary tells me something huge is up and we are in trouble. Friday morning I'm sitting in the conference room waiting on people to dial in and she tells me we were required to send out a prospectus. When I mention there is no client money in the account and it's all ours - you could almost see the blood drain from her face. We showed it as an asset of the firm on all our financial statements for years which they thought was also fraud. woops. She flies out 2 hours later having done absolutely nothing of substance.

Rather than giving money back to her church, she can pay less social security by reducing the amount she receives from her church.

I worked with a CPA auditor when a company I worked for was having an audit. He most specifically did NOT want to look at any of the weird things I was seeing - refused point-blank. At that point I figured an audit was just a useless rubber-stamp paid for to put lipstick on a pig.

I worked in audit for a big CPA right out of college. A lot of it was tracing numbers from one source/report to another. It was terrible work. I am so glad I am on my own now doing taxes and small business accounting and payroll.

Sounds like deja vu all over again. I remember Arthur Andersen auditing companies that went kaput. Gave them clean audit reports. When I was young, I thought auditing was the thing. I never worked in a big firm but did audit work with a small firm auditing local government entities (school boards, cities, etc.). On my own, I audited some small non-profit organizations. I began to feel uneasy about the whole auditing function. I haven't done audit work in years but I am very skeptical about the whole thing. Maybe I'm just old and jaded. If I sound cynical, that's because I am.