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I wish the 1/31 was 2/15 and I don't care how far they move the 2/15. There is always somebody who gives me an incorrect SSN. If not, I can screw that up all by myself. I hate that we won't have February to fix those things.

And there's that one employee who sees their SSN on every check stub for six years and on six W-2s, and never notices it's wrong, and calls me because her tax preparer, who should be ME, caught it in year six, but I digress.

Thanks Elrod. I think I knew about the 1-31 thing, but it certainly doesn't hurt to be reminded since it's new stuff. Problem now, of course, will be getting clients to cough up the info in time for us to actually do something about it. As for the 2-15 refund holdup, my (now) mostly older set either don't care about or get refunds, but I sure feel sorry for our Block/Jackson colleagues who have to deal with the quickie-refund bunch.

Well, the scammers have to find a new tactic now that law enforcement has shut down the big IRS impersonators. Here's the latest one: http://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/28/us/politics/us-indicts-dozens-in-300-million-indian-call-center-scheme.html?_r=0 Note this is not the same bunch arrested in India a week or so ago. Between the two of them, though, hopefully they've put a huge dent in these calls and discouraged others in the same business. Of course there will always be those who think they are smarter than the average scammer and try to pick up where these jerks left off. I have gotten emails and calls from banks where I don't even have accounts asking me to verify my info, from the "IRS" wanting me to verify my login credentials or check my "secure" mailbox, probably a zillion others the spam filter picks up, calls from "Microsoft" because something is wrong with my computer, and seen clients with actual paper letters about supposed IRS tax liens. It's a scary world out there. I am scared for myself because I'm so skeptical I'll probably miss some critical message by not responding, and I'm scared for my clients who aren't privy to all the junk out there and do respond.

Oh, yay. /s

Bart: I enjoyed the political give-and-take in the early days, and I enthusiastically participated in it. I think I even had a few posts deleted or was strongly encouraged to alter some things I said. For those of us who have pretty thick skins, not much bothered us. But it was obvious that some posters took things to heart and had very emotional, visceral reactions (even to what I considered some fairly humorous or innocuous stuff at times). Since the main purpose of this forum is sharing professional guidance & experience, it was a wise decision of the moderators to adopt the current policy.

The Internal Revenue Service today reminded employers and small businesses of a new Jan. 31 filing deadline for Forms W-2. The IRS must also hold some refunds until Feb. 15. A new federal law, aimed at making it easier for the IRS to detect and prevent refund fraud, will accelerate the W-2 filing deadline for employers to Jan. 31. For similar reasons, the new law also requires the IRS to hold refunds involving two key refundable tax credits until at least Feb. 15. Here are details on each of these key dates. https://www.irs.gov/uac/newsroom/reminder-employers-face-new-jan-31-w2-filing-deadline-some-refunds-delayed-until-feb-15

https://www.irs.gov/government-entities/federal-state-local-governments/truncated-taxpayer-identification-numbers You may not truncate on any forms filed with the IRS (Copy A) or with state or local governments. You cannot truncate your own identification number. These rules do not apply to Form W-2. emphasis added

I would also pass the $5 fee on to the client. My annoyance would come from being charged a fee for those fiscal year entities that legitimately have a due date in 2017 that are required to file on the 2015 forms based on the starting date of the fiscal year, and also those fiscal year entities that are on extension with an extended due date in 2017 that are technically not late. It does seem like nickel & diming to me also.

From the IRS W-2 instructions: Social security numbers. Do not truncate social security numbers shown on Forms W-2, W-2AS, W-2GU, and W-2VI. Social security numbers are required on Forms W-2. See Taxpayer identification numbers, later. See also Regulations section 301.6109-(4)(b)(2). Filers of other forms, such as certain Forms 1099/1098, may truncate the social security number (XXX-XX-4567) to combat identity theft.

Yes. Any praise of the Seahawks and I wing my iPad across the room like a frisbee. I must avoid those sites. The warranty has expired.

This is going to screw up a lot of people's Valentine's Day gift planning. Many guys (and gals) going to be in deep ship.

Thought I would give you all a heads up if you don't know already. I just renewed my ATX Max software and was given the 10% discount, plus my account rep thru in an extra research book! Different this year however, is that starting in 2017 any tax return e-file for 2015 or 2014 is going to be charged an extra $5.00 transmission fee. They truly are starting to nickel and dime this program to death. Perhaps next year I will be trying out something else. Sad because I've been with them since the early days and long for them!

Yup, gonna have to agree with that. Buy whatever your software requires. The software I use on a daily basis is available for both MacOS and Windows, and I have both, and don't feel strongly about either of them--they've both got their pros and cons. Apple hardware is well-built and has a price to match the fit and finish. You'll find that most Windows computers of similar quality come at a similar price--the only difference is that Apple doesn't compete in the low-end of the market. Lets say for the sake of argument that MacOS is inherently more secure than Windows. It's not going to matter, because you'll be using Windows to run your tax software whether that's in a VM on top of MacOS, or running natively with BootCamp. I will say that it's more common for Apple users to evangelize for them, and I think that mostly has to do with Apple not playing nicely with others. You can't use Facetime or iMessage on Windows or Android, for example, because part of Apple's business model is to keep their users trapped within their ecosystem.

Pondering the issue personally, meaning what would I do if there was an option to truncate? I would not. Why? It is likely the one and only time each year the employee gets the opportunity to make sure the employer has the proper SSN. Not all employers give the employee a chance to verify the SSN in their payroll system before Copy A is submitted.

Just one person's thoughts... If you have an application which is important to you, will it run on an Apple product? If not, and you choose an emulator to try to get it to work, you are using the emulator to pretend you are using a Windows box, negating any perceived or real advantage to using Apple, as well as adding an extra complication and failure point. I do not create software for Apple because so few use them. Probably the same for nefarious programmers as well. But, there are those that do... so the virus argument is invalid. For me, it is never about the OS, the OS is simply a means to get to the application I need or want to use.

But those forums make me cry.

Okay. I understand. Thank you.

Yahoo and Newsmax are good sites for political discussions. Viewers can comment--agreeing or disagreeing with the articles

There are about a million online ways to express political opinions, enjoy political humor, argue political ideology, etc. I'm fine with this one site being "clean" of politics. Politics, religion, and football are pretty sensitive topics IMHO and best left to forums dedicated to those issues.

Thank you for the answers. I called the tax practitioner line and since there is no probate and the personal reps will not be court appointed, my mom just needs to sign as surviving spouse on a new POA for her husband. That will make all of our lives much easier. I just want to still have the right to call them and try to get the refund back to her.

Do not use Form 56 if you are notifying the IRS that you are the authorized representative of the taxpayer. Instead, use Form 2848, Power of Attorney and Declaration of Representative. A fiduciary is treated by the IRS as if he or she is actually the taxpayer. Upon appointment, the fiduciary automatically has both the right and the responsibility to undertake all actions the taxpayer is required to perform. For example, the fiduciary must file returns and pay any taxes due on behalf of the taxpayer. An authorized representative is treated by the IRS as the agent of the taxpayer. He or she can only perform the duties authorized by the taxpayer, as indicated on Form 2848. An authorized representative is not required nor permitted to do anything other than the actions explicitly authorized by the taxpayer https://www.irs.gov/instructions/i56/ch01.html#d0e41

Pub 523 line 7 does not say you get the full 250K exclusion. After you determine your gain, you need to use the worksheet on pages 15 & 16 to see how much is taxable.

My condolences also. I hesitate to chime in, but I wonder if the fiduciary, whether executor or administrator, should file Form 56 and then sign form 2848 to allow you to continue as POA. You are not the fiduciary, but it is there responsibility to appoint someone to represent your step-dad. But Catherine and Lynne are usually correct, so I may well be making this too complicated.

My sympathies! Procedurally, I think Lynn is right.

My condolences. I am not sure, but think perhaps the executor for your stepfather needs to sign a form 56. Hopefully others more knowledgeable in this will chime in. Lynn

I agree and that's exactly why I confirmed the price increase. I have every intention of passing it on.

I will be passing this additional $5 fee on to my clients as a line item. They need to pay for being late. I have too many of them that are behind through their own fault.

From what I've read re the 1099 deadline, if the 1099 is for box 7, nonemployee compensation then it has a 1/31 deadline. If it is for any other box, then the deadline to the IRS is delayed to February 28, 2017 (paper) or March 31, 2017 (electronic).

Received an email purportedly from ATT saying that my email account had exceeded capacity and account would be blocked if it wasn't remedied. AT&T 'Account Limit Exceeded' Phishing Scam OutlineEmail purporting to be from AT&T claims that the recipient's email account limit has been exceeded and that the account will therefore be suspended unless it is verified within 24 hours.Brief AnalysisThe email is not from AT&T . In fact, it is a phishing scam deigned to trick AT&T account holders into divulging their account login details to Internet criminals.

Eric, KC and I had many discussions over that year and a half period, and all three of us agreed to put a ban on politics for the good of the forum. The description of General Chat is clear and does indicate that the forum will not include politics, and most everyone has been understanding of this and sticks with accounting, tax, and software subjects as is our focus. For newer members that weren't here a couple of years ago and as a reminder to those that were here, remember that we did try a separate forum, tried asking posters to be respectful, tried reasoning, tried warning points, tried time outs as a cooling off period, and no one liked any of those solutions and they weren't working either. When the occasional political posts do occur, there isn't any way left to deal with this other than to hide or delete them and let the poster know, and that is how Eric suggested it be handled. I'm following his decision on that across the board with ALL political posts so that it isn't personal or at all biased against one side or the other, and so that there is no judgement call about whether something is so mild that it won't be offensive or not. Since I am the moderator that happens to be on here most of the time, I am the one that is either hiding those posts or editing those words out of a post by using a very light font so that the post is preserved with the offending part not visible to the membership. Again, what seems innocuous to start with can quickly escalate into something else. All it takes is for a followup post to include some reference to their candidate, party affiliation or platform, or something against the other side, and we'd be off and running. At this point in time, we aren't going back to hosting political discussions.

The Internal Revenue Service today reminded the nation’s more than 725,000 federal tax return preparers that they must renew their Preparer Tax Identification Numbers (PTINs) for 2017. All current PTINs will expire Dec. 31, 2016. https://www.irs.gov/uac/newsroom/2017-ptin-renewal-period-underway-for-tax-professionals

Thank you Max, for the heads up..

I can't remember the last time that I wore a belt.

You're right. Can't believe I've gone this entire filing season without posting a link to it...

Is there any truth to the rumor that we get 5 CEU's if we can prove we saw it?

Hey Hey I am in shape.......... round is a shape and a perfectly acceptable one at that.