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When you see someone's name pop up on caller ID and your heart drops, fire them. Life's too short to be miserable.

Well, that is one way to lessen the number of tax returns the IRS has to process, justifying the force reduction. s/s Super Sarcastic - funny not political. I hope you think it is funny. If Judy kicks me off the board I won't have anyone to talk to at all.... Tom Longview, TX

I did that this year with one client. Couple, he thinks I'm great, she doesn't understand numbers at all and is suspicious of everything. Plus she is (only vaguely competent) trustee of five family trusts left by a parent. Royal PITA getting anything out of them except "why aren't you done yet?" queries. Told them last year - after their payment checks cleared - that they needed to find someone else for this year. When this thread of "rough season" started up I realized the entire reason this season, while hectic and full of its own upheavals, seems so much better, is because this one family went elsewhere. And yes, husband called in January, asking pretty please if I'd take them back. Told him, very politely, no.

Sometimes clients hear what they want to hear. If other withholding or estimates were already sufficient for 2024 to meet the safe harbor, are you sure that the previous preparer didn't really say that if they didn't pay tax on the gain during 2024 that they wouldn't have the underpayment penalty? That could be the case here, a year later, especially when a client doesn't fully understand and aren't talking with the original messenger that can revisit the conversation and information or advice she discussed.

One silver lining of PITA clients leaving is that we can spend more time with our lovely clients!

I do not remember such a rough season as this year. Well maybe the stimulus seasons. But so many people this year forgetting documents !! Interest statements, investment statements, social security statements. And you call and no one ever answers the phone. You leave a message and they call back and ask what you wanted. Did you check your voice mail ??? No, they reply. So frustrating. Then they forget you need stuff and call and ask why its taking so long to prepare their taxes !!! Idiot... your suppose to get me documents !! I dont call then Idiots, but I sure a heck want to. So many other frustrating situations. Too many to list !! But something has to change. We need to cut way back and weed out problem clients. Been saying this for many years, but it has to happen. Time to change our pricing and business model. I think its time to loose all non 1040 clients and a few schedule C clients. And pain in the arse 1040 ones. We could raise our prices 30% and lose 30% in the process and make life so much easier. And at a 30% price hike, we would still be under the national tax prep average. We charge some clients the same we did 10 years ago !! Some even beyond 10 years !! But it has to change. Getting old and just honestly do not need the aggravation. Anyone else, have a crazy year ???

You must make taxable a part of the scholarship that was or could be used for tuition, in addition to the amount in excess of tuition. For example, if tuition was $24,000 and unrestricted scholarships were $40,000 ($16k in excess of tuition which was used for room and board). If you make $20,000 of the scholarship taxable to pay nonqualified expenses, that leaves $20,000 to apply to the tuition, and that leaves $4,000 of tuition available for the credit. The scholarship terms must allow that $20,000 to be used for nonqualified expenses and it would be taxable to the student. And pay attention to Slippery Pencil re. kiddie tax and getting an accurate statement of account - was the scholarship actually used for qualified expenses in another year, or was it for room and board in the current year.

She moved to Florida. She's probably handing out bad advice down there as we speak.

Send them back to their previous preparer Life's too short for clients like this!

Looks like it was under another name and became Westrock through a merger. You may have to work backwards from the # of shares now to what was originally held before looking up the historical prices. Found this on Wikipedia that may help, if this is the company you need data for: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WestRock

If you haven't raised prices in 10 years (what were you thinking?), you will have to do it gradually, although yours are so low you could start with 20%. I'll bet that some of your clients react with, "What took you so long?" Beware though; we had a client who came in every year with her check already made out so a price increase would be hard to impose. Different tiers for services with different pricing would be hard to keep track of. We use a client contact sheet to record all off-season encounters. Anything that requires extensive computations and/or takes more than a half hour gets charged. If there are just routine questions or whatever but a lot of them, price of tax prep goes up next year. Not many of us have the nerve to get rid of our PIA clients, but those who do seem to be unanimous in saying what a relief it is and why didn't they do it years ago. And it's better for our mental health to be the ones doing the firing instead of the clients firing us, as was the case for Judy. In her case, my hunch is the parents got annoyed and decided to go elsewhere, dragging the kids along. Those complex returns surely took a lot of time, so the silver lining is that she might just be able to go home earlier a few nights.

There are lovely people I serve too though. I delivered a return yesterday to a client/friend of almost 40 years. She's 95 now in assisted living. Return isn't *that* complicated but has half a dozen 1099Rs, one consol broker 1099 package with only 40 page or so, the bigger main consol broker 1099 package that was only 60 pages, and a PTP. We had a really nice visit and did some reminiscing. People like her remind me why I still do this work.

I would be in the $400-500 range too, depending on how much work I had to do on the rental and basis of stock. If the basis is printed on the broker 1099, that is less work than if the client brings in basis from an inheritance or older purchases where they've changed investment firms, etc. I had one that I started to list in the complaint topic and changed my mind. The guy did not return to me this year because I charged him $800 last year. He'd been a client for more than 10 years and I cut him big breaks on the calls and projections, but not on the returns themselves, and I still undercharged him. He also owed about $60K on the federal alone because he has huge bonuses and never calls, and does stupid things like using retirement distribs to purch the beach property, and underwithholds or has no withholding on that income. Tax prep and other work included were for: high income earner W-2, so also had Medicare add-on tax, but not even $1 of interest or dividends so no NIIT, Sch A with SALT and mortgage limitations, sold 2nd residence which also had extended calls to fill out the form to avoid the state tax withholding at settlement, purchased another beach house, this one as rental but with lots of personal use, and didn't agree with explanation of expense limitations and argued that, 3 retirement distributions with partial rollovers and minimum withholding of 20% in the 39% bracket. These partially used for new beach house/rental, a complicated projection with 3 scenarios for a possible early retirement. Sent me a 200+ page booklet of explanations of these deals that he then demanded answers for within a day (the week I had the flu too!), multi-state as DE resident and working in PA, out of state credit and a daughter's return that was PY DE, PY NJ, and worked in Phila while living in each of those states, and then worked in NY city once fully moved to NJ. So with all of that, it was parent's Fed, DE, nonres PA, 2 complicated projections, and daughter's Fed, part-year DE, part-year NJ, nonres PA, and nonres NY and NYC returns. Nine returns in total. His other adult daughter left too. Charged her ~ $500. Similar BS with multi-state: She works in PA, husband in DE, they sold home in DE and moved to PA during year, has 2 children for the CTC and dep care credits with the documentation and due diligence, unemployment, std deduction for federal but each itemizing for DE on a separate basis, plus they live in a PA jurisdiction that has local earned income tax. So that one was joint Fed, 2 separate PA, 2 separate DE, 2 separate locals and figuring the out of state credits on those was a PITA. Not a word from either of them to know why they were unhappy. Those are the type I typically never take back because they were unhappy enough to leave and not give any courtesy to me after more than 10 years as clients and lots of free advice. I hope they are happy with their new preparer and higher fees, and if they contact me in future I will joyfully and firmly say "NO THANKS."

I'm out of gas. It seems to be more hectic this year but I don't know why. Maybe some are getting in here later. I'm not sure. I told myself I wasn't taking new clients. Then there was the son of a client, the daughter of a client, the parents of a client, fiancee of a client. Whoa, I gotta learn to say no.

I'd tell him that unless he has proof of the loss and also proof that it wasn't used up by capital gains in the interim, I can't deduct anything. I find it hard to believe that any preparer wouldn't be deducting that capital loss every year, and carrying it forward.

That's a good question. I guess I'd see what the other state says about S corp distributions, but my inclination is to go with resident state, like the W2 does.

Lee B, but you have to work year round. I don't Different strokes....

Last time I had something that convoluted, the bill was over $1,200 and that was years ago. Today, probably closer to $2,000 - $2,500 for 1040 series. More if 1041s (with or without K-1a) are part of the mix.

TLDR version of post above: DUMP the pita clients. Your life will be so much better.

If you know a good broker (as opposed to the customer service "broker equivalents" who answer phones at big houses, they can dredge up old merger & acquisition historical data from tools they have but we don't. I have a broker I've worked with for years and years who has helped me in just that way several times. The good ones see it as a treasure hunt (and maybe a way to show off, a little bit), and probably enjoy doing something more challenging than selling the latest big thing their house is pushing brokers to sell. Look for a small local or boutique firm as that's where you are more likely to find someone with the tools.

they certainly can. but I have a partnership that is one rental property and on January 15, I have a clean spreadsheet delivered to me. So I think there has to be room to charge less. Same with a trust that has one consolidated 1099 with all the 1099-B stuff in the covered category. But I'm afraid they are going to have sticker shock when I retire.

Bookkeeping is a separate charge for me. I don't mix the two on my billing. 1 bill for the bookkeeping, 1 for the tax return. And I made a decision a couple years ago that Corps, Scorps and P/S start at $1000 before I open my software. I don't care how simple they are, they can get hairy in a heartbeat. I am thinking about doing the same thing with Estates and Trusts. The amount of handholding that you have to do when someone's mother passes away and the child who has no clue how to be a Trustee starts asking questions. They have built trust with us, and we try to walk them through the process, but man it takes a lot to get them to understand what they have to do, all the while grieving their loss. I just wrapped one up that I would rather never see the client again. And they are good friends of ours. But man it was rough. Tom Longview, TX

I was going to get new computers before this tax season, but I held out waiting for the Win11 OS to mature a bit. 6 tax seasons on my current machine. I need to find someone to set up my system for me. I love Dell, but all the crap they pre-load takes forever to find and delete. Anyone here who knows about setup willing to clean up a Dell system for me? Not naming names, but his initials are @Abby Normal . Brisket on me, and when the humidity gets to you, you can hop in the pool. August in the South is wonderful if you love to wear the air. Tom Longview, TX

Kiddie tax. Get the account statement. 1098Ts are notorious for being wrong. Also determine if the scholarships for the whole academic year were posted to the account in September 24 but covered both the fall & spring semester while the Spring 25 semester tuition was paid in January 25.

The taxpayer's name of course goes on the name line. On the address line, I always put "c/o" and the fiduciary's name before the street: c/o Smith 123 Main St.

You and me both! And I am nowhere near these killer prices. I am in this mostly for the sake of the clients.

schirallicpa I am in Rochester and yes the roads can be brutal as well as the property taxes, the annual heart break of the Bills and the long winters but I guess better then tornados, hurricanes and wild fires.

All I can add is Ditto to all the above!

I agree with @jklcpa. I am wondering how you are going to do that in ATX? My first thought is to use the State K-1 Worksheet and override. Is that how you would do the entry? I don't have anyone in this situation, just filling up my brain with some extra information that I can forget later and know that I knew it before. Tom Longview, TX

Agreed. This sort of reminds me of when clients sell a depreciated asset and bring you all the costs from the first purchase on assuming they're all a deduction against the sale and not realizing they've already taken those deductions. They just don't understand how it works.

Without researching, I'd say that this isn't any sort of apportionable item or a corporate-level item that can be attributable to nexus in the client's nonresident state, but rather is a shareholder level gain based on individual's basis. There are a few states that tried to impose a tax on similar gains from partnerships (distribs in excess of outside basis) for partners (CA, ID, NJ, OR), but not KS as far as I know. I would treat this as taxable to the resident state. What is the nonresident state?

Was it only the pipes that were replaced? And only up to code, nothing fancy? No pump or mechanical equipment or holding tanks or anything inside the house? Not all or substantially all of the plumbing? Then, I'm on the side of Repair. You can elect to Capitalize, if they expect their income to be higher in the future...

Catherine is my idol and my hero!

I feel bad for all the IRS people who are going to have violate their code of ethics to do this. In addition to the hardworking immigrants who tried to do the right thing paying their taxes. And the economy, because all those folks have added a lot to it, and paid a lot of taxes, and now are not going to want to have real jobs, they're going to go for the under the table positions.

The difference is does the case blow, or suck? It's a computer after all so it might be either!

Thank you @Lee B and @schirallicpa - this did not extend the life, but rather restored the water supply to the house so that it was livable. I don't agree with @Margaret CPA in OH as it was not amelioration of a defect but rather repair of pipes that just plain old wore out and started leaking. They did not have to dig a new well (determined after the existing well was evaluated). Whole issue was the location of the leak (from the well to the house, under the state highway) leading to the huge expense. I didn't think, and found nothing to support, a requirement to capitalize it simply based on how much it cost, but wanted to run it by fellow experts before making a final determination. Probably confused in my mind by the initial concerns, last summer, of possibly needing a new well, too.

Hmm. Pub 4012 is the guide for VITA/TCE. It says:

Yes, it appears balance due will work. Duh!

The box I am referring to has nothing to do with PTPs. You either have nothing checked in this section shown or have the default checked which is "D". Again, Drake is allowing the loss as nonpassive because no box is checked or is defaulting to "D" and is putting it in the nonpassive column on pg 2 of Sch E. IF you want the the loss to be subject to the PAL rules, you must check either box "A" or "B" that I have highlighted. Checking either of these will produce the form 8582, and 8582 worksheet, and possibly a PAL worksheet. If your client has active participation, check box "A" and the loss should carry to line 1b of the 8582 and will be disallowed for the current year, carried fwd to future, and current Sch E should have a -0- on it. Checking box "B" for passive activity will also produce the 8582 with the loss flowing to line 2b. Again, loss should be disallowed and carried fwd with the current Sch E having a -0-.

Westrock was WRK on the nyse. Though that isn't really helpful since you need to know the predecessor's info. The client has a trade confirmation from Schwab that has more info than the 1099. You can google the cusip # if you need more info such as a symbol or co. name. Though at this point you won't find anything w/ the symbol on bigcharts, etc because the company merged and the symbol no longer exists. Unfortunately for the client, if they don't have basis info, the irs says the basis is zero. That wouldn't stop me from using a reasonable estimate from the client, but they need to know it will be reduced to zero if the irs questions it.

What is listed as the "type" of partner? Does it say "individual" or does it say "individual passive" or "passive"? Drake will put the loss in the nonpassive column and carry, allow it, and carry that loss to 1040 Sch 1 if you check "Nonpassive (default) box D" on the K-1 input screen. If you believe this is wrong and that the loss should be subject to the PAL rules, then you need to check box B for "other passive" on the K-1 input screen. I still don't think Drake has a programming error. It is doing what you are telling it.

I'm pretty much in line with your pricing. I have those easy ones that are under $200 too. Then there are ones to deliver where the total will be on your higher end. All the bookkeeping for an entire strip shopping center, lots of payments for expenses charged on credit cards, quarterly tenant passthrough billings, quarterly gross receipts tax filings, had a casualty with insur reimb when a tractor trailer ran into the end of the buildings with structural damage. It's an LLC taxed as partnership, and then preparing the individual owner returns with other investment properties too. Very high income. Great clients that were with the firm I worked for in the 80's and came to find me when that owner retired and have been with me since '96. Will be delivering to their home for no charge, gives me a break to get out of the office for a short time too.

A couple of years ago I agreed to prep a very simple return for an employee of a business client. Prior CPA preparer charged btwn $450-$500 for a return with one W-2, two SSAs, one 1099int, one 1099R, standard deduction...AND IT HAD ERRORS. HRB would have been even higher around here! Former preparer wouldn't return their calls, and they took it there in person and former preparer refused to acknowledge the error or fix it. These people are really, really nice too. They were really nervous coming to pick up the returns and the amended ones from me, naturally being worried again about the CPA price. I was nowhere near that fee!

Raise your fees! Or else I'll send all my clients who complain about my prices to you. And, I bet they still complain about your prices! If you're getting no price complaints, you're too low for your area. If you get a few, you're still too low. If you lose a client over price, you're close to a good fee structure. If you raise your fees 30% and lose less than 30% of your clients, you're in good shape. Then raise them a smaller amount again the next year!

Had a client today who "lost" $1.5m. Not that he lost $1.5 million in the stock market drop, he couldn't remember where it was invested to get me a 1099. When I asked if he still had healthcare through the marketplace he responded with a "you need that form every year?". Had a lady call a few weeks ago and said she was ready to get her taxes done and I could pick up the docs on the way home. I get there, we meet in the lobby of her building and I ask "do you have some forms for me?" Her answer was No and thought I could figure something out. Son of a client has learned from his secretary that his father's nursing home expenses were deductible, he declares we weren't claiming those and he wanted me to file amended returns as soon as possible for the last several years and I'd be doing it for free as I had failed to do my job. His sister (on the email chain) responds "We've been doing that for the last 10 years but thanks for getting involved now." That was a fun day. Had a couple three weeks ago who had a household income of $350k and owed $3,700 on their federal and the husband didn't know how they were going to pay it. He wanted to know about how to set up a payment plan and the wife was steaming mad. When I mentioned they'd be getting about $2,000 back from the state and would almost certainly have the refund before April 15th, he still wasn't 100% sure they'd have the funds and wanted information on making payments.

An Unhappy Hour with a beverage of choice in hand. Find Brenda C, CPA @bsuecannon on Tax Twitter/X. She has a scheduling scheme to spread out her work AND have the clients buy in so few "just checking when my return will be ready" calls. I just didn't have the time to put it in place this year, but definitely will before next season. She recorded her Zoom training sessions. Brilliant woman who put her years of experience to work for her and is sharing her methods. I've been raising prices 10% each year since back in Covid when I read that the average CPA price increase was 35% that year. (Used to raise no more than 5%.) Although, a couple of the biggest complainers had me back off if I put them on extension to stop the complaining. I found a fairly local preparer to recommend when clients complain; he has 5 offices and can take on new clients. I haven't seen a check yet, but I'm to get paid. I've been encouraging attrition with my price increases and insistence on extensions to spread my work out all year. Every return is more complex. Energy credits taking a LOT of research. Sell home and move to a new state, so have to allocate wages, etc., to PY returns. College kids working in 2-3 states and maybe an IC gig. I started getting behind when Covid began, and it just gets worse. I'm also going to have 3 tiers of pricing. 1. Current price but fewer services, mainly only electronic copy and PAY for quick questions. (I've trained most client to use email for nonPII and quick questions, so I can answer when I have time and have a record to save in their electronic file on my computer.) 2. Price increase, at least 10%, for same services as now, but a limit on quick questions before charging. 3. Substantial price increase, adding more minutes of quick questions. Trying to guide clients to the middle price that puts a limit on free quick questions. Maybe Bronze, Silver, & Gold. Or, Compliance, Collaboration, & Concierge. Or, 1,2, & 3. Or, A, B, & C, if I could come up with titles starting with those letters, such as C = Concierge, but should B = Basic and what would A = ? A chocolate treat to the one who contributes names for the 3 tiers!! Marchternity @MarchternityBot Today is March 1865, 2020. It will never end. #taxtwitter

Well since I have already raised my fees and cut back over the years, my tax season has gone fairly well

It's really crazy. I think we need to have a giant round table session (at Rita's burial ground ;)), or maybe a giant zoom call) just to discuss practice management. I've been working 90 to 100 hours a week since the first week of February, and I literally am getting too old for this. I feel like I can hardly push myself through this final week. I have good staff, but it's still just too much. I think others work faster than I do, and I need to learn efficiency steps. Last year I did 730 returns including extensions. This year, I'm at 525 so far and working as fast as I can. Client documents are delayed, and everyone just needs to talk to me for '5 minutes'. I feel like such a loser when I put someone on extension whose information was turned in during March. I set my deadline at March 7th for a guarantee of no extension, and I have passed that 'check-in' date, but people are still really good at making me feel bad, anyway. Thanks for listening. Yes, I like cheese with my whine. I do think some sort of 'trading trade secrets' meeting would be amazing. I'd host you all in Kansas ... you probably don't want to come in August, though ;).

Note that this type of "theft" is not subject to the 10% of AGI+$100 reduction for casualty losses and should flow to line 16 of Schedule A (not line 15).

I'm way low. But I'm old. So what anymore. I do keep a time sheet on each client and use a rate times my time. But the total is much higher than I actually charge. I'm too embarrassed to tell you what I charge.