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I love it when they don't balk. I always have one or two that freak out. Last year, a potential new guy just couldn't take the idea of having it done April 22 rather than 15. Went to a free service. Came back in July: "Can you amend this return for me, and forgive me?" Saw him last week and it's love all around now. God made extensions for a reason, people, staauup yer unbelief. Amen and amen.

I have a calf that looks like an Oreo McFlurry. And, yes, I do think about food all the time.

Joan and Catherine:

I had one earlier in the season, started calling and checking on the "progress" about four days in. I called her and told her she could come and pick up her forms and take them elsewhere, no hard feelings. She said, "Well, I needed the refund a month ago." I had to bite my tongue to keep form saying, "Well, then, I needed your forms six weeks ago. That's how this works." I am so glad to be rid of her.

You're probably not going to find any professional tax software that runs on a tablet, outside of tablets that run a real version of Windows.   Personally, I can't imagine trying to be productive on any machine that doesn't have a good keyboard.  Shallow key-travel drives me nuts, so even a lot of laptops I find pretty horrible to use for long periods.  Tablets are definitely geared more toward consumption of information/media.     Yeah, but it really blurs the line quite a bit.  That's probably the most computer-like tablet you can buy.

Jack, you are SO SO WRONG. This gal appreciates that too. Here is a pic of one that one of my clients brought to show me, btw. 32 Ford. Yes, that's me waving.

In our old country church yesterday, where I play piano part time and yesterday was one of my turns, I noticed the preacher had left his dunkin' donuts coffee cup on the corner of the lectern. During the "pass the peace" time (an informal meet and greet) I made my way to the pastor, who is once retired and about to retire again, and said, "it is probably not a good idea to leave your coffee unguarded around a tax professional during tax season". Just a couple of minutes later I was back at the piano and that coffee was only about ten feet from me. He walks over, picks up the coffee, takes a drink, looks me right in the eye, and says, "mmmm, it's still warm!" I just about went over the piano after him! Thank you Lord for holding me down!

I had a former client from 10 years ago call today. They've been doing it themselves and have 3 states involved! They didn't balk at the extension, but they also have a notice for an unreported mutual fund sale from 2013 that must be answered by 4/15, and they don't have the 1099-B or basis pulled together yet! Yeah, I shouldn't have answered that call.

Does the trust have a pour over clause? If so, the stocks went into the trust at the date of death. Most revocable living trusts are reported under the grantor's SSN since you don't need to get an SSN until the trust becomes irrevocable,and it becomes a separate reporting entity. Clients are notorious for not notifying the broker that the person has died and that the 1099s should be issued as of DOD under the trust's EIN. And brokers are notorious for not issuing short year statements.

Response # 1: I can handle your return, but right now we need to file an extension. That relieves both of us of the travel deadline and allows me to get your reteurn into my normal rotation. If you happen to owe any penalties or interest for underpayment of your tax, that will be your responsibilty. Response # 2: (silence)

New client this year; retired pastor and 94 years old. You would not believe how organized the paperwork was. His wife is in her 80s. His biggest worry was that I would not remember about the housing deduction for the retired pastor from his ministerial retirement plan. Lots of investments; lots of interest and dividends. What a joy to work with. In the end they don't owe a penny. Wow! Hope he sticks around for a few more.

"Hello, Rita, this is 85 year-old Taxpayer, I was wondering how much you charge for a simplified return?" (Discuss, discuss, blah, blah.) "Well, my return is very simplified, but let me tell you: I screwed it up royally for two years in a row, and my husband says you are doing it from now on or he's trading me in."

Dear client - your sales tax reports and your income tax return should at least remotely reconcile. You cannot show NYS sales tax that you only had $100000 in sales when in fact your purchases exceed that 3x. What don't you get that? When you get audited, I will charge you more..........and that is my only hope...........In the meantime, you just keep on telling NYS sales tax whatever you want and do not bother to heed my advise. I will report to NYS income tax what your sales deposits were. And we'll just count the days.

have you donated lately to this great Forum? I haven't.... but I plan to do soon while supplies last. Give me a like if you will donate this week.

Last night during a bill paying session, I bent over to file my utility bills in my home office folder. SPAZZ! My back has a muscle spasm. Managed to get off the floor & into my desk chair and finished the bills. Still in pain this morning, so I took a Soma to try to get my muscles to relax. Good thing I only have one appointment today and it's a delivery. I'm loopy. My hot tub has been broken for months. My bathtub is still full of feathers from a cat/bird incident. Like I get around to housecleaning during the season! Oh, and my assistant has a cold. Yesterday I just could not wake up and got near to nothing done, but the bill paying. All I want to do is sleep right now..... But it did rain a wee bit last night.

Today is the day we started telling folks coming in that we will be extending their return. So far no one has balked. But in the seven hours since we opened this morning, we have had 10 returns come in - 2 corps, 1 partnership, and 7 individuals. I suspect that pace will maintain through at least the end of next week.

Had a voice mail this AM from a guy who cancelled his first appointment and didn't come back for several weeks because "he was busy". Voice mail said "I am desperate for my tax return!" Wish I had been home. Would have told him to come and pick up his stuff as I am desperate to get the other 54 on hold done; and more coming in every day.

I have a fondness for hardware, too -- but I like the ones that go "BANG!". I keep hoping for a cannon for the front yard....

Joan feel better!! I am *not* looking forward to the root canal I will be having tomorrow afternoon -- but I would rather that than have my back go out! (Plus it's a front tooth so only one root.)

March 20 was my cut off date. Most of my late filers haven't graced my doorstep yet. Lots of pickups this week!

Any documents the client has provided to the preparer belong to the client. Each client is entitled to a copy of their tax return, depreciation schedules;etc, that they paid for. The only documents that the client would not be entitled to would be those the preparer may have created while the return was being prepared. I don't think preparer notes, worksheets; etc should be provided. We are not required to keep anything after three years.

April 22? I am telling my folks it will be late June at the very, very earliest. I have enough catch up work (non-tax) to keep me busy until then. And for the balance of April - when we get back from our very brief time away from the office - we are committed to quarterly stuff. Then I have 3 IRS audits going on that I am knee deep in and the auditors have been gracious enough to tread water until late April. Then I have a financial statement audit that has to be done in May. And I have a half dozen non-profits that are due May 15th and some fiscal ye corps due May, June and July. Again, that is besides all of the other stuff I have to catch up. So we will not even be looking at these extensions until late June. We are up to 14 checked in today and only one has balked. She needs to have it filed on time so social security will adjust her medicare withholding back down. She had a high income year last year. I guess her concern wasn't as important during the past couple of months when she could have gotten her stuff in here. She stood out front deliberating whether to leave her stuff or take it somewhere else. I guess her love for us won out. She is on extension here.

I set up the scenario first, today we woke up to 3-4 inches of snow and it's still snowing out there and traffic is a nightmare!!! Dear Clients, I am glad you were able to take the day off work today due to the weather and thank you all for thinking of me and calling me today to let me know you have free time to stop by the office today. Well good for you, my phone also took day off.

*Ahem, cough, cough* I wasn't going to point out that fallacy, but I'll just give you the link below. My husband and I both worked on this car, restoring it after being in storage. We had this at quite a few car shows on the East Coast and national Chevelle show in Nashville, weekend cruises, and he took it to the local drag strip a few times too. Sadly, his cancer was a factor in deciding to sell, but we had loads of fun with it for about 10 years. Paul and Judy's 1970 Chevelle SS 396 with a 1969 427/425 Corvette engine, rectangular port heads, solid Crane cam with roller rockers, 850 Holley double pumper, 2" Jet Hot headers, and 3" Torque Tech exhaust, a Borg Warner Super T-10 4 speed that transfers power to the 4:10 12-bolt posi with Richmond gears. More info is in link that you can see and read about here, it was a feature of the month.

Obviously the stocks were never in the trust as the taxpayer never bothered to tell the broker to put the trust name on the account. It really does not make a tax difference. It should be reported on the individuals estate 1041 with a step-up cost basis.

I am in favor of cutting out the bank and allowing licensed preparers to have their fee deducted from the refund and sent to the preparer. A split refund. You could apply for permission from the IRS at the same time that you renew your PTIN. Give them the account number that you will be using before the season begins. It should be simple to do for the IRS and it should allow the tp to get their return processed as fast as possible with no out of pocket expense. The IRS would also be able to collect data on the cost of preparation fees, not to mention allow them to have another source of income information about the preparer if they choose to audit the prep company's income. If combined with the outright prohibition of advances on refunds, it should clean up a lot of the fraud and price confusion in the industry. Tom Newark, CA

Sometimes I use a Ouija Board.

SWWWWEEEEEEEEEEEEEEETTTTTTT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But I still prefer the Shelby Cobra Mustang. It IS my dream car. If I could just figure out what those damn 6 numbers they draw twice a week are, I will get me one of them suckers. Tom Newark, CA

I like both the, the rolling metal and the kind to which Catherine talks. I have in my garage a 1981 Camaro, with a small 305, but boy does she like to go. We bought that car off the show room floor in early 1981 in Waco, Texas and have had it ever since. She is part of the family. She has had the body restored to show room quality a few years ago, the interior has held up remarkably well. And when you take the T's off and climb in on a beautiful spring day and just open her up.....................................Gosh, do we HAVE to finish this tax season?

is this a 2% s/h in s corp? maybe they are actually taxing the health ins prem and including on the w-2? maybe they misunderstand the pre tax?? just a throwing out a SWAG

Lost in divorce, but son (now a lot older than in the picture) owns the Mustang.

I would think that you could ask for copies of returns, if they can be found, but I'm not sure that the entire file should be released. I'm just thinking about if there should be anything that came up after the preparer's death, someone might need to be able to look at those records. It's just off the top of my head, but it may be a legal question or question to their E & O insurance.

My son has a 73 Plymouth Road Runner restored and a 70 Barracuda original; and lots of trophies. C'mon Jack.; don't count us ladies out. My 04 Jeep Overland has the V8 HO Engine and I LUV it.!!!!!

And greatly enhanced by the Congress [all of them, all parties] using the tax code to try to administer welfare programs, social engineering, even environmental programs.

My first question? Were the stocks actually titled in the trust name? If so, why are they being reported on the individual's tax ID number? Tom Newark, CA

When dad died, mom gets his half at FMV on DOD. Now she owns it all. She gifts half to son, and the gift basis depends upon whether he sells at a loss or gain. When mom died, son gets her half at FMV on DOD. http://www.irs.gov/publications/p551/ar02.html#en_US_201412_publink1000257012

All my elderly clients provide me with detailed lists of medical and charitable payments, neatly listed and totaled by hand without calculators. There is never a mistake.

We are really cute. Most of my clients really like and comment on my presentation folders. Much nicer than a bunch of papers thrown together in a green and white envelope. I have a very few clients who want their copy of the return in a .pdf format. It doesn't cost that much for me to give them something in return for what they pay me.

And removing the insatiable need of Americans to get their refund RIGHT NOW!!! This is the driving factor for the way the system is structured. Thereby giving the fraudsters free reign. Comes down to greed by the average American citizen, and the disease of INTENTIONAL APATHETIC IGNORANCE.

A fire can be very debilitating and disheartening experience. Anyone who has experienced it first hand will attest to that. Your guy is asking the right questions. And the rules are pretty simple. Use the insurance proceeds to rebuild and pay little to no tax. Use the insurance money to go play and the piper will need to be paid. Your guy needs to explore all of the different approaches and decide what makes most sense to him going forward. He needs to be honest with the insurance appraiser and gather all of the info necessary to make an informed decision. My first hand experience with fire? My parents house, 8 years after I left home, was the victim of a fire that spread from the neighbor's house. The neighbor's house caught fire because the kids in that house were playing with matches under the bed. At the end of the day, both houses were completely and utterly destroyed. They say no one died or was injured in the fire. My Mom, just a couple years later at the very young age of 58 years old, died never having gotten over losing every thing she owned in that fire. I attribute her death, from a massive coronary event, directly to the fire. I relay that story simply to reemphasize my first two sentences in this post. Your guy needs to understand that his decisions do not affect him alone.

That's good for cash flow and your sanity.

Are you saying that they bought the property together but it is only in one partner's name?

I learned years ago that a neat professional looking client copy in a nice folder impresses clients. To my thinking, it's a small cost that can be seen as an advertising expense.

I agree with Lion (AND OldJack). However, I would not editorialize about it being your fault. I have used the RP 84-35 argument only to have the IRS respond that they are basically ignoring all that and abating the penalty under the first time offender principle.

I have a friend who finally tried to text her high school daughter some thing and she used the text slang. Her reply was: "I know this isn't my mother so who is this, not funny" I didn't mention mother is blind. We laughed tell her daughter got home.

Yes, put the pressure where it belongs. Have the shareholders call the guy who has the info but isn't sending it to you. I have that now, 25 cranky shareholders and the "manager" is dragging his feet about getting the info to us. However, the "manager" has no problem telling the shareholders to call our office to get the info. I have put a stop to that. Rich

Maybe not in an accounting concept, but the legal concept of cash is that it is considered personal property, especially when talking about one's estate, and gift and estate taxation centers on that. It's covered in code sec 2511 and reg sec 25.2511-1(a ) where it says: § 25.2511-1 Transfers in general. (a) The gift tax applies to a transfer by way of gift whether the transfer is in trust or otherwise, whether the gift is direct or indirect, and whether the property is real or personal, tangible or intangible. For example, a taxable transfer may be effected by the creation of a trust, the forgiving of a debt, the assignment of a judgment, the assignment of the benefits of an insurance policy, or the transfer of cash, certificates of deposit, or Federal, State or municipal bonds. Statutory provisions which exempt bonds, notes, bills and certificates of indebtedness of the Federal Government or its agencies and the interest thereon from taxation are not applicable to the gift tax, since the gift tax is an excise tax on the transfer, and is not a tax on the subject of the gift.

Ouch!!!! Literally and figuratively.

^ that, exactly. There is much more to the article than I posted. My post was only some of the highlights it.