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I have several clients who have SMLLCs for their rental real estate holdings. Since the SMLLCS are disregarded entities for tax purposes, everything is reported on Schedule E. Your client's situation is really no different except that the transactions will be reported on Schedule B, D and Form 8949.

Yeah, I have a client with 4 employees who insists on manually calculating his paychecks. The WH calculations are all over the place, then I have to clean it up when I do the ATF recordkeeping.

Seems better than the current forms to me. For people in the simple situations I'll probably just tell them how to fill out steps 1, 3, 5, and possibly check the box in step 2. For people in more complex situations, especially if they don't like their overly large refund or balance due, I'll have to get a feel for it but I'd say it'll only take about 10 minutes of billable time to fill it out after I've completed their prior year return. It would be nice if the W-4s could be even simpler, but I'm not sure how much better they can do without completely overhauling the tax law. So long as we still have graduated tax rates it's not going to be easy to calculate withholding when the filer(s) have multiple jobs.

In 20 years of practice, I have NOT been successful at getting clients to change the withholding at their employer.

How has the SMLLC elected to be taxed?

I've taken my cordless phone into the bathroom more than once.

Look, I know you're just trying to help and thanks for laying it all out for us (obviously you've done a lot of research), but I guess the problem is that many of us don't want to do calculations and become responsible for clients' withholdings. It's like doing the tax return twice; but they won't want to pay you very much for a W-4 form. Of course I'm beating a dead horse here because IRS will do what they want, which is probably to collect more money up front. Software (which I don't want to buy) can make it easier, but it won't absorb the blame when taxpayers give you understated or wrong estimates and owe money in April. We had a perfectly good, simple, and practical W-4 which was the taxpayer's problem - not ours. If short, all they needed to do was write in hold X dollars per week more next time. Now (along with the 1040) it has been blown all to hell - they've created a problem and handed it to us. Maybe the "estimates" will work out; maybe they won't, but clients will have a handy target when they don't. Okay; rant over, but Lion's right - this isn't simplification. It's more in the direction of the ever-expanding 8867 whereby we became IRS' "partners".

I suggest you revisit FAQs 3 and 19. The Only item I did not see referenced is the fact that there is one, and only one class of non new hires who must use the new form (those claiming exempt), but since there is not likely to be a change in the exempt forms aging out each year, there is no reason to include the existing rule in a FAQ about change (if one were to apply logic to tax dealings...). FAQ 16 ONLY applies to hires after Dec 31 2019. "The new form is not required at all, other than for new hires, those filing exempt (by the normal deadline), and those wishing to use something other than their currently valid form. Jan 1 2020 does not make the existing valid in place forms invalid." My earlier statement is supported by the entirety of the FAQ.

Hmmmm….I wonder if that will work with my client when they call me and say their account was swept by the IRS? Tom Modesto, CA

Actually, I think it is horrible (the same as Abby did in his tiff with Medlin: "What? No percentages?") And since they killed off the number of dependents there's nothing left for the average employee to work with. It was hard to get them to fill out a W-4 before and even then they could only because they knew they were single/married and who lived with them. Now the boss gives them five pages of junk and says "Fill this out." I can imagine how that's going to go. People at small employers like a cafe will simply say "I can't do this" and hand it back to the boss who will then bring it to me. Large employers (factories) will require their people to fill it out or be replaced; they'll take it to the payroll clerk there who will say "I can't do this. Take it to your tax person." We'll also get those. As Medlin said, you can make some money out of this, but my God, at what cost? How many hundred people have I seen who are dissatisfied with their withholdings at tax time (and they'll remember who filled out that new form). There's not enough money to compensate us for the ill-will that will be generated amongst clientele when it doesn't work out. When those forms are issued I think I'll either take a vacation or, like the college kids, try to find a "safe space" where I can't be found for a good while.