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Check out this site....https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/food/2020/11/01/national-sandwich-day-2020-deals-freebies-election-day/6089125002/ A whole bunch of goodies...Hoping there is one by your home...

I've taken several courses given by Jeff Lenning and also receive his email newsletter. He is a CPA, a Microsoft Excel MVP, and Microsoft Certified Trainer. He provides online training at Excel University and is one of those listed in Lion's list above. I'm not sure that a blog is where you'll have the ability to ask others for advice though. Anyway, here is his blog site: https://www.excel-university.com/blog/

These Are The 69 World’s Best Excel Blogs That Will Teach You Everything About Spreadsheets Written by co-founder Kasper Langmann, Microsoft Office Specialist. If you are looking for practical, in-depth educational blogs about Excel, you’ve come to the right place. Here are the top 69 best blogs to learn everything about Excel. As you already know, there’s no shortage of awesome content about Excel. However, we decided to separate the wheat from the chaff and hand-pick the very best blogs for you. Whether you’re brand new to Excel or an “Excel-geek”, these blogs give you all the tools, tips and tricks to skyrocket your skills in Excel as quickly (and easy) as possible. UPDATE (July 20th, 2020): A few links have been updated (some removed) and a few new blogs have made it to the list. https://spreadsheeto.com/best-excel-blogs/

Also, nose around the blogs' links. Some bloggers maintain forums for their followers.

Excel: The Best Forums to Ask Questions There are so many possible things to do with Excel that it's easy to get stuck on something. Your first instinct should be to Google your question. But when looking for something really specific, that doesn't always work. In that case you can ask your question to real people on a forum. In this short post I'll share with you my 3 favorite places to ask questions about Excel. https://www.excelfrog.com/forum

Have you looked into Reddit, Facebook or twitch?

I have as well and found the information to be very useful. It's somewhat fast paced but easy to follow.

Blogs generally aren't used for Q&A sessions. You would be better off looking for an online forum focusing on Excel. I did a quick search and came up with a few that look like what you might be looking for. My search was "excel help forum" and these first two looked promising: this one is run by MVPs and/or certified trainers, looks at your specific troubles, charges nominal fee for the service: https://www.excelforum.com/ this one, straight to microsoft: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/excel/ct-p/Excel_Cat

Thanks for the well wishes and advice. As far as "the account"...with 95% accuracy, my son would never take money from this account (he lives well within his salary....one might call him frugal)....it would definitely be best to just name him beneficiary. Hopefully it will end up a "large account" because an annuity distribution will be contributed monthly "forever". (Annuity has low tax cost basis and high current value....tax nightmare...so I'm spreading it over as many years as possible.) Until 2020 retirement was great...lots of cruises, shows, restaurants....the good life. Now...supermarket, tv...etc The best thing about retirement is that I don't have to keep up with tax changes!

Good to 'hear' from you, Ms. TabbyKats. Hard to believe it's been 5 years. I hope they have been good ones. Perhaps just make the account payable or transfer on death to your son. That is what we have done for our accounts and house.

I have convinced all my clients NOT TO PARTICIPATE in the deferral. I see no benefit for anyone.

I saw that, and was SO glad all my accounting clients opted out of deferring those!! What a nightmare this will be for companies who do in-house payroll. The big services will make out well though.

I may be mistaken and didn't research for you, but I think the rule and question asked is if you are now presently current on all returns and payments. I can't answer about questions related to becoming an EA and it's been a long time since I initially applied for my EFIN so YMMV. The only way to know for sure is to apply and wait for an answer from the IRS. It's too late for this coming season anyway, so your best bet is to try to find employment with a firm to expand your knowledge and proficiency.

@MsTabbyKats, Sara is correct that it isn't a completed gift until the son would withdraw from the account, but it would still be better for your son to get the step up in basis. @Sara EA, thanks for catching my error.

This should be treated the way a checking account is when a parent puts a child's name on it. There is no gift if the parent funded it and the child does not withdraw anything for his or her own use. Only when the child takes money out does it become a gift. Still, since it's a brokerage account, best to make the child a beneficiary so there is step-up basis.

Hi, MsTabbyKats! Nice to hear from you again. Stop by once in a while to catch us up on your life. Stay well.

I agree with Margaret. To answer your question though, yes, 1/2 of the deposit into a new brokerage account would be considered a gift to your son if putting his name on the account. A benefit to doing as Margaret suggests is that if the account is in your name, at your death and transfer, your son would get a step up (or down) in basis and wouldn't pay income tax on that growth if he sold it.

Thanks....yeah, I think I'll just make him the beneficiary. Yes...5 years. Sold the business Oct 2015.

Small separate desk for the 9-5 work. Can be in the same room as the home office space, but the sqft must not be counted towards the home office usage. Employer should be willing to provide compensation for use of your space and utilities, hopefully accountable basis, or enough to cover your costs and the increased tax (if treated as additional wages). Or remove the sqft shared with the 9-5 use, and only claim the remaining amount (assuming there is some space not shared). If you can document less home office use, you may have a number to show your employer as to your "cost" of the space you are providing.

You may have a problem, because under current law, employees can no longer claim home office use as a misc itemized deduction on Schedule A. In order to deduct home office for your freelance work, you have to meet the "exclusive use test". So the question is if you use the same space for both functions, have you blown the "exclusive use test" requirement?

Yep. I believe I remember QB not having a General Ledger report until version 3. It was then I concluded that they weren't consulting with accountants, and it still feels that way often when using QB and especially when setting up payroll for the first time. Seriously? One liability account and one expense account for EVERYTHING!! That's insane.

Most employees likely have an unlimited talk and text plan so it doesn't cost the employee anything to use their personal phone. I wouldn't mind having a separate phone for work and personal. I don't want customers, vendors, coworkers, etc. knowing my personal cell number. Another option would be for all employees to install Google Voice and get a Google voice number. You can set up a Google voice number to ring on your phone. And when you use the Voice app to call out, the caller ID is your Google voice number. I did this when I was phone banking for the election and didn't want my number coming on the caller ID and getting crank calls back.

I still remember when QB had version 1, 2, 3 etc... and in DOS

I have QB back to 2015 installed on my older computer, and (so far) just 2019 on the new computer. I can download 2020 and 2021 any time I need them, but they're humongous files, so I won't bother until then. I make notes in the client file about their version, but YES it would be nice if the file name itself showed the version!

That would be helpful if we knew they were finished with the backlog in time for the 2020 filing season.

I just installed 2021 so I have 2012-2021 installed (10 years), but I rarely use below 2014 anymore. And don't you wish Intuit would store the version in the file details so you'd know which version the file is from? At least the accountants copies have the version number in the filename.

Why would you draw any salary without the funds to cover it? There is one simple answer, wait until the 150K payment arrives before drawing any salary.

I have been working with various CPA firms for over 20 years. Audited financials, reviewed financials, 401K audits and tax consulting and preparation for the owners of the companies I worked for (I would never prepare the tax returns for the company that I do the books for - I want that second set of eyes on my work). The owners always care more about the tax strategies than they do about the review or the audits. The only question the owners have about the financials is usually "did we meet our covenant ratios for the bank"? I have seen good and bad and average firms, but it never fails that the owners always prefer the firms that cater to their tax needs. The current firm I am working with has our audit with one partner that I cannot stand, and she works with a junior accountant without any experience. It is awful. I tried to get them fired, but guess what? The owners love the principal of the company who personally does their business and personal tax returns. I am stuck. So I have to live with this crappy auditor and her incompetent side kick for the Financial and 401K audits. That is just the way it goes when you work for the man. You take his money to do his work, and you will like it, and you will say thank you. Tom Modesto, CA