JJStephens

Now why didn't I think of that?!?!? Thanks.

Sorry you've had that experience, amigo. My experience has been just the opposite. The vast majority of my clients are clergy and over the years all but a very small handful (I can count on one hand) have been intent on doing it right. I've had my share of new clients who were clueless and made clueless mistakes but all were willing to make it right when they found out. Don't get me wrong, none of them liked having to pay taxes and they weren't jumping for joy in the instances where I discovered their previous preparer did not understand clergy tax issues and we had to go back and amend to make it right. The point is, when they realized they legitimately owed more tax, they paid it. In 29 years of tax prep I've had exactly ONE (former) clergy taxpayer ask me to do something unethical or try to sneak something past me. Maybe I've just been lucky and stumbled across the honest minority. But I don't think so. I get 'em from just about every denomination, walk of life, and age range and have clients in 26 different states. I know it is popular these days to bash 'em but at least in this area, I think it unwarranted. Anyway, that's my two cents' worth.

Client's brother is administering their deceased mother's estate. The bank paid more than $800 in interest to the brother who split it with his sis (my client). He wants her to claim her share and is showing a nominee entry on his return for his share. I used to be able to override Sked B to record a nominee entry ... but no more. How do I record it now? Line 21 other income?

In addition to my tax/consulting gig I also pastor a small church so this is a big week/weekend for me. I hoped to take some time off from tax prep but a flareup of my wife's chronic serious illness coupled with my own trip to the ER yesterday with two(!) kidney stones means I'll have to double up whenever I can. No rest for the weary. Deep sigh.

I installed it yesterday. No probs. At least, none with the software

Well garsh. I haven't done a trust return in about 8 years ... and now have two in the last couple days. Both involve rentals that were part of a living trust created by the now-deceased parents of a couple long-time clients This time of year I don't have time to go back to school on this but I'm not comfortable with winging it either. I'm good with Sch E but the 1041 itself has me a tad nervous. Anyone have a tip on where I can get a a quick-and-dirty refresher?

Charitable mileage is deductible only when it is a necessary part of giving service to a qualifying charitable organization. They were not rendering a service to or on behalf of the organization--their attendance was only so their child could participate in an activity sponsored by a charitable org. Therefore, no deduction. Give 'em credit for taking a 'creative' approach though!

Client has several 1099-INTs that require a Sch B. She also has numerous smaller amounts for which 1099-INTs were not issued but which add up to a tidy sum. I cannot for the life of me figure out where (in ATX) to record the additional interest. ATX seems to be forcing me to make all entries via the 1099-INT worksheets. I've run into this before (previous years) but what I did then doesn't work now.

Thanks. I've had Winbooks before (I've lived in/near their Columbus OH headquarters for the last 28 years). I have a Lenovo Thinkpad Twist that I'm probably going to put on Craigslist. I paid $300 for it (used) a year ago. I probably won't get a fraction of that now. Sigh!

Thanks Margaret. Which Surface Pro iteration do you have? I can get a refurbed SP2 for just under $350.

I plan to soon buy my second tablet (third, if you count the one I got my wife for Christmas). Just wondering if any of you have any advice about what to consider/not consider. I need something that can handle a variety of biz apps (perhaps including ATX). Excellent wifi is a must as I use MS Office 365 also do a ton of client work using cloud based accounting and payroll SaaS. Gaming capability is not a factor (the closest I come to gaming is treating myself to a daily online crossword puzzle). I'm not an Apple fan; I'm torn between a Windows or Android OS. Both have new OS's coming out soon (Win10 and Lollipop5.0)--I'd prefer something that is upgradeable. I'd like the keep the price tag under $300 or $350. Thoughts? Thanks in advance.

Garsh, now why didn't I think of that?!?! That is what I've historically done ... it never even crossed my mind this time.

Thanks all. I totally understand the corporation/not-a-corporation thing (including the LLC taxed as a C or S-Corp). I added the LLC info to my OP because I assumed many of you would assume (as I did) that many of the payees would be corporations and therefore, exempt. I simply wanted to indicate that a couple of them are LLCs and therefore would be eligible. My question is exclusively whether paying for air-time is reportable. I can make a case for it being 'like' some things that are reportable and also 'like' some things that are exempt. I do appreciate Pacun's counsel to just report and be done with it, but this client is wary of volunteering any info to the guvment that is not absolutely required. PS While this query was pending, I decide to give uncle a call on the practioners' hot line. I got a recording saying (I paraphrase) 'this line is no longer answered by a live representative. Go to the IRS website for answers to your every question.'

I truly appreciate your feedback. I know that corporations are generally exempt (there are a handful of exceptions). My question is if purchasing air time constitutes rendering a service or if it would be treated more like the purchase of merchandise (which is exempt).

Client purchases extensive time on a couple TV networks to air religious programming. Some of the payees are LLCs. Does that need to be reported on a 1099? I can't find anything in the 1099 instructions even remotely related. I'm inclined to say no, but have a nagging unease about it. Thoughts?

Have any of you seen any decent/concise ACA questionnaires to help us gather the info needed to do a return? I've seen a few but they were either way too simplistic (two or three questions like 'did you have insurance during 2014?) or two-page decision tree monsters. Not looking for too soft or too hard--looking for just right!

Employers can provide an HRA ONLY if offered in conjunction with an ACA compliant group health insurance plan--those HRA's are called 'integrated HRA's. 'Stand-alone' HRAs (i.e., any HRA that is not an integrated plan) are no longer permitted (as of 1.1.14). It sounds like Sue's employer is offering a plan that is not permitted under current law--or at least that she is not eligible to participate in due to her having an individual marketplace plan. Therefore, the questions you posed are moot.

A couple points (that may or may not help!): Being non-profit and being tax-exempt are completely separate issues. An organization organizes at the state level as a non-profit entity. Tax exemption is attained by meeting the requirements for the particular tax An organization is required to file a return unless it is statutorily exempt from federal income tax (e.g., a church or a non-profit that has revenues of less than $5000/year) or recognized as an exempt public charity or private foundation (i.e., a 501c3 organization) by virtue of an approved Form 1023 or recognized as another kind of exempt organization by virtue of an approved Form 1024 . Regarding the donations issue: not all exempt organizations are eligible to receive deductible donations. For example, 501c4's and c6's (etc) can receive donations, but the donor is not permitted to take an itemized deduction for them.

As a general rule, 3 conditions must be met for income to be considered UBI: The revenue generating activity must be a trade or business, and The activity must be regularly carried on, and The activity must not be substantially related to the organizations exempt purpose (even if the funds are used exclusively to further exempt activities). 'Not substantially related' means that the activity that produces the income does not make an important contribution to the exempt purposes of the organization other than to provide funds to advance those purposes. It does not matter that the income is used exclusively to fund exempt activities. The deciding criteria is whether the activity (itself) that generated the income is directly related to the organization's exempt purpose. It seems to me the church did not regularly carry on a trade or business of investing in real estate. Therefore, the income would not be subject to UBIT.

I went through the very easy password reset process (just eliminated the password) and now I'm in. It had 509 forms to update. That took about as long as expected. Also as expected, an awful lot of forms (including the ACA forms) are not yet available. Most of the functions look familiar--I didn't see any new tool bar buttons. A quick scan of the drop downs didn't reveal any surprises. I rolled over my own return as a trial. It seemed to take a lot longer than I expected. After about 50 seconds the progress meter had not moved off dead zero so I cancelled the rollover. Lo and behold, my return showed up in the Return Manager. I guess it was going on in the background but wasn't updating the progress meter. Opening the return took a bit longer than expected, probably because it was looking for a lot of forms that don't yet exist. It finally opened after 30 or 40 seconds. Once in, bouncing around from one tab to another or one form to another was quick and seamless. So I guess my first impression is reasonably good. I trust the rollover issues will be smoothed out as new updates are issued.

Downloaded and installed. Trying to get in now. Requires entry of ATX user name and password--my PW is not working.

They were down for awhile. I called in & they said they knew about the problem and that it would be fixed within the hour ... and it was. I just e-filed a couple of extended Forms 990.

After nearly an hour on the horn with level 2 tech support, they figured out that an e-file can be created even with a 'check return' red 4868 error if the 4868 was previously accepted by the IRS. In other words, if the 4868 was accepted, the program just ignores any 4868 errors and proceeds as usual. That is not a very satisfactory answer, but at least it's an answer and it works.

Yeah, I know. I just prefer to get things done while I'm thinking about it, because my thinker sometimes doesn't work like it used to, especially when I put things off! I did remember to add an Outlook reminder to renew later this month. Now, if I can just remember to check my Outlook reminders

Working on an extended return (mine--deep sigh!). I e-filed the extension back in April together with a payment on the anticipated balance due (the extension was accepted on 4/15). On F4868 page 1 I checked the box to lock amounts and carry extension payment to main form. Now, I'm trying to e-file the return but keep getting a red error that says 'Payment Date must be today's date or later. If this efile is being recreated due to a rejection, this date must be updated.' I tried deleting the 4868 payment info (entered it as an estimated payment) but I'm still getting the error message. I've had many returns previously in a similar situation but I've never run into this issue. Any ideas?