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He will definitely have basis of: original cost, settlement charges at purchase or paid outside of closing that are required to be capitalized, and any subsequent improvements Then ... The way the original post was worded, it seems that this property was never "put in service" as a rental, but it must have been entered on Sch E if PALs were reported. I agree with cbslee that we need to know if it was available and advertised for rent. If never put in service, he should have made an election to capitalize "otherwise deductible" expenses of the real estate taxes, mortgage interest, and other carrying charges that could have added to basis instead of incorrectly creating a PAL. For projects under development or unproductive real estate such as this one, the election must be made annually by attaching the election statement to the tax return by its due date including extensions. In other words, IF it was never put in service as a rental and IF no 266 election was made for those years, I don't believe that there should be valid PALs available to help offset the gain, and I don't believe he would now be able to now add those expenses to basis for which no 266 elections were made.

I usually don't answer if it's not someone I know, but when I do, I never say "hello" or answer "yes" to anything. I'll answer with "accounting office, Judy speaking" because answering "hello" will tell the computer dialer to route the call to an available person or trigger the computer to start responding. Even if answering "hello" sometimes there are no agents available on the other end to speak to us and so in those cases the computer will automatically disconnect from us. Also, I never say "yes" to any questions because that can be recorded and manipulated as acceptance of something we didn't intend or in answer to a question we were never asked. I have noticed a decrease in calls that, for my office, typically are related to credit card processing, health insurance, Medicare Advantage or Medigap, and sometimes life insurance. I don't get them on my cell phone that is personal. I have AT&T's security with it set up to route any callers not on my contact list directly to VM without it even ringing. The call log lists those as flagged from potential scammer or telemarketers. If it's a real call, that person does have the ability to leave me a message. It works well. On my old phone I used to get calls in Chinese that were out of NY and turned out to be a scare scam directed at Chinese immigrants to get them to pay a fee so that they were not in danger of deportment. The scammers knew that only Chinese speaking people would understand and possibly fall for it with the rest of us simply ignoring it by hanging up. Those calls have finally stopped for me.

I use a small community bank, and even there all I have to do is click on the check number and up pops images of the front and back of the check. Have your clients tried that?

The key question is, " Was the property actually listed, advertised and available to rent ? " If not, it was Investment Property.

In the last month, I've heard from three clients who received a letter from IRS saying they didn't pay the amount due with their return. The first one sent a check with a voucher, the check was converted to ACH and the bank records show "United States Treasury". The other two were set up for electronic payment on 4/18/23 and the funds left their account on that day and IRS was confirmed as payee on bank statements. What is happening? Anyone else seeing this? Is it me? Is it my software? I realize when you look at the big picture, this is a small thing. I did 275 returns last year and only three have an issue. Unless you count the client I fired when I learned he was a lying liar who lied and deserves every IRS letter he gets. Probably also deserves jail time but I digress. Just curious if anyone else is seeing something similar and also wondering who else is considering saying "I'm done." Because I'm pretty sure 2023 are the last returns I will prepare. I staggered through PPP and Covid and I did taxes in my driveway for two years and I realized most people were not who I thought they were. It feels like April 15 here tonight

A good start for simplification would be to end Head of Household as a filing status. It confuses taxpayers and is needlessly complicated. Increase the standard deduction and the 10% tax bracket (main benefits of HoH) and no one gets hammered and one less thing to worry about. Of course this will never happen.

Do you reply in kind?

The robocalls to my office landline have dropped significantly since I only answer those calls which have a clients caller ID. All of my non business calls go to my personal cell phone where I only answer if I recognize the caller ID. If not, they can leave a voice mail which the robo callers and spammers don't do. The weirdest thing is every 2 or 3 months I get a text message in chines characters?

I have to interject for one reason. Yes, they have increased. Usually my cell and my landline will identify as Spam Risk. I don't answer. However, I have found that since medical facilities have gone to central calling; I have not answered some important calls. We learned early on that if we answer with our business name, spammers will hang up immediately because they are not supposed to call businesses. Yes, they have increased. No, I don't know why, but I do try to answer because we have a multitude of medical and other appointments that send out recorded calls that should not be missed. The situation is hugely annoying to say the very least. Just my two cents worth.

Several years ago my wife received a call and the spoofed number was her own cell phone number For years I have used my answering machine on my office landline to screen calls. As soon as the answering machine activates the robocalls disconnect.

I never answer unidentified calls on either my land line or my cell. I have voice mail available and virtually no callers that are unidentified leave a message. I've done this for literally years. There is the odd occasion that a number has been spoofed (I think that's what it's called). Last year there was a call identified as my township government office. I didn't answer it having no expectation of a call from that office. There was no message so I did call that office back and asked the reason for the call. That office did not call so I alerted them to the issue.

I have discovered this year that the IRS has different subsystems that don't always communicate with each other. In your client's situations, just because the IRS or the U S Treasury was the payee doesn't mean your client or your client's correct account was posted. You or your client will have to call the IRS. You will need the transaction trace number for the IRS to track down where the payments went.

the first time a couple files jointly, they may find out something unpleasant about the other's past. However, with no withholding, then there's not much chance of losing a refund. But as a rule of thumb, I'd probably want an 8821 for the new client to check their account.

Following up on this - the IRS will only give you a LTR385C which states that the IRS accepted the S status on such date. The Form 2553 is thrown out after the IRS has accepted the election. This is what I was told today when I finally got thru to someone. And I dare say, the phone lines and queues have not gotten any better. It took me 3 tries this week, the first two I was disconnected after a long hold.