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My girls gave my husband a gag gift of a USB pet rock some years ago, for his office. He recently found it with a bunch of things he brought home when he retired, and it's time to re-gift the rock. If anyone here wants it, they can have it for postage (it will fit in a small usps priority mail box). They still sell them brand-new, for double or triple the postage price. We have the original box and instruction manual. Apparently, the people most confused by it were upper level managers and IT.

File returns and pay tax only. POA can be gotten on a conference call with client and IRS. POA should cover 2005 to 2026 (you never know what can show up and you may be able to get more than one Penalty abatement). You don't have to put penalty abatement on the 2848. Also, put ACA 2014 to current year (no form name or number). first try to get a FTA by calling PPL. To get a FTA, the prior 3 years to the penalty year have to be clean (except for ES penalty.) If they reject you can appeal it, but if it fail then go to reasonable cause.

Lion, it sounds like you are going to be very busy. I am so very thankful, I don't any clients like these. Live long and prosper

I had never heard of this and had to google it to see exactly what a USB pet rock was. Now I know. What will they think of next?

Pay tax, pay interest, do not pay penalty. Call with client or wait for POA. Put "penalty abatement, civil penalty" on the line below the 1040 on the POA. Include at least a year before the trouble started and one year after (2019-2024).

"Timothy J Lundquist of Minnesota pleaded guilty to willfully failing to account for and pay over employment taxes for his automobile transmission business. Lundquist was responsible for filing quarterly employment tax returns, as well as collecting and paying over to the IRS payroll taxes withheld from employees’ wages. For at least the last quarter of 2013 through 2018, Lundquist did not pay withholdings to the IRS or file required employment tax returns. In total, he caused a tax loss to the IRS of more than $1.2 million. IRS Criminal Investigation is investigating the case. Lundquist faces a statutory maximum of five years in prison. He also faces a period of supervised release, restitution and monetary penalties." I am astounded that he got away with this for 5 years!

Take this with a grain of salt since I don't deal with these kind of clients: When you have the returns prepared, pay the tax and interest ( not the penalty) via direct debit or Direct Pay. Then file the penalty abatement request. Remember the POA will take 5 to 7 weeks to be processed. Don't know if it would be possible with this client, but in the past I have dealt with the POA processing delay by making phone calls together with my client in my office.