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Yep, my proofreading skills improve after hitting Submit Reply! But my most common issue is getting a phone call as I'm rereading a Post, hitting Submit Reply in a rush, and then not getting off the call for ten minutes. Too late to fix that "now" to "not" or that stupid spelling error or the time I called Marilyn as Margaret or the other way around. But Judy is right to limit the editing time window due to the reasons she explained.

That's for people like me that see their typos only after they hit Submit Reply.

It doesn’t give the amount. But I don’t have access to their account records, so it’s the clients job to look it up. No reason to discuss it any further with me until they’ve done their job.

Oh, but I love the Feral when it comes to anything IRS !!

Well, I decided to come out of retirement and will be doing some contract work for another firm on a very part-time basis. Retirement is great. You can pick and choose what you want to do. Anyway, I look forward to interacting with you all again.

You can customize the 1040 Ln 25-Tax WH tab to have the SSA EIN always there for you, in case you have withholding on a 1099-SSA, and it will NOT give you a red error if there is no SS withholding!

Here it is. SSA's employer identification number (EIN) (52-6004813)

Thank you and sorry for the misspelling on my part s/b Federal and not Feral :}

I love the clients that say, "Can't you look up my [insert mortgage interest or tuition or...here] on your computer?" as if I know their personal bank records and stuff !!

Try to create an efile file and you will know if you are required to enter a number for line 25.

Okay, I will try that. And it works!

Editing is still allowed for 5 minutes after a post is made. This change was made a couple of years ago after someone here kept going back and changing their posts after I'd responded to them, making it seem like they'd never said what they'd said and making my responses to an issue seem like I was making things up that had actually been said. If anyone sees something drastically wrong with their own post, everyone still has the ability to hide their own posts in their entirety and are able to post a correct response. Those hidden posts are still visible to Eric and I but not to the general membership. The limits on editing, and allowing hiding but not deleting posts, allows Eric and I to see the actual posts as they occur.

I'm using that. Sold.

Soooooooooooooo filing season starts February 12th! I am assuming I can still go ahead and efile these early birds who fly in and ATX will forward them to the Service on February 12th. I'll have to explain to the clients that any refund due will be late in coming right ? Like most of you I too am expecting fewer clients this season. I usually advertise in February but have decided not to do so this year. At 78 I haven't been dependent on the business for income in ages but I enjoy it and interacting with those I serve. My family have been involved in some form of small business for four generations and some 150 years and it sorta runs in the blood. Sadly I am the last Mohican.

Thanks, John. Very helpful. I appreciate you posting it.

For anyone who doesn't have the information, I'm going to send them this link and tell them to get back to me after they look it up. https://sa.www4.irs.gov/irfof-wmsp/notice I sent out my letter last week. It had two main points. 1) No in-person meetings; 2) Plan for extensions.

One reason that everyone is so down right now is that we just got through the tax season that never ended. We couldn't do much in April because we were too busy taking calls about the stimulus payment and business loans. July was just like the usual April. Immediately after it was time for extensions, and October was just like April. Then it was time for CE. In between there were many more calls from clients who needed help with loans, retirement distributions, new W4s that are incomprehensible, and on and on. We never got a break, and for those who took a few days off there was no travel so we never really got away from it all. Another reason is that there were so many changes to the tax code, and changes to the changes, that our brains are overloaded. We now have to take update courses to the updates we already took. One poster said that she just didn't feel competent going into the coming season, and I think that feeling haunts many of us. Hang in there. We've mastered huge changes before and will again. The new heads of the IRS and Office of Professional Responsibility seem to hear us and to be genuinely supportive (as opposed to treating us like enemies of the gov't and their personal hit men). As the virus winds down and the IRS and congress get their acts together, things have to get better.

All good points. But I think the IRS will not want to make an announcement on extending the tax season until later in the year to spur as many as possible to get their returns e-filed. My guess is somewhere around March 15th there will be some kind of action that allows for an extension of time to file/pay. Tom Modesto, CA

I would not mind, otherwise I will have a ton of extensions. I will have to warn my clients again up front. Last year my sister had a brain tumor and my dad broke his hip. Yesterday my mom had a surgical procedure and they found that her bladder is full of tumor. She had been cancer free since 2012. We don't know why it came back. The doctor just told us that there are no good options, so we don't know yet how long we are looking at, but we want to keep her at home, if possible. It will be a struggle for us, but Covid has already messed everything up and we don't want her in a home where we are limited in the time that we can be with her. We can get in home medical care, but I want to spend as much time as possible with her. I am going to have to read up on trusts, because I will have to file for her when it becomes irrevocable. I have not prepared a trust return before, because I always farmed them out. My 26 year old son tested positive for Covid today is very sick. They just gave him codeine cough syrup and supplements. He said that he never expected to get this sick, but he can barely stand up. I hate that he's 500 miles away and we can't even drop off my husband's famous chicken noodle soup. I really hoped that 2021 would be better than 2020, but it's not looking great for my family again.