Pacun

I bump it up or down. It seems a new organization which is not ready itself. How can they help us with the new requirements if they are not ready. I belong to two organizations: From one I can ask one question every year... from the other one, I can ask 5 questions. This new organization doesn't have that service. It is stated that the directory will be ready on January 1, 2011, I guess they mean 2012. "Tax Professional Directory NARTP's Tax Professional Directory will be live on January 1, 2011. Welcome to NARTP's Tax Professional Directory, the public directory of members of the National Association of Registered Tax Preparers. This Directory is a service of NARTP, a professional membership organization, and is free to the public. Tax Professionals Tax Professionals consist of attorneys, Certified Public Accountants (CPA), Enrolled Agents (EA), and Registered Tax Return Preparers (RTP). Each tax professional is distinguished by stringent requirements. Tax professionals have extensive tax knowledge, skills, experience, and ethics. In order to qualify for their respective accreditation, tax professionals must possess tax education, pass a national accreditation exam, meet experience requirements, conform to a professional code of conduct, and obtain continuing professional education annually."

http://www.irs.gov/individuals/article/0,,id=96304,00.html

Politics and economics act very strange. Everybody wants to reduce the deficit when there is not a piece of the pie for them. Think about this. We all know that RALS are bad, really bad for poor people who pay a lot of money to get their refunds 10 days earlier. I have never ever been tempted to offer them to my clients because it is a RIP OFF. But, if bank will share what they charge 50 50 with me, TRUST me, I will offer RALS tomorrow. Perfectly labeled post! Let's keep it that way.

I agree they are good lists. I found "The Hispanic Service Center" on both efile and ITIN acceptance. It does bring some business since very few preparers (maybe 5) are listed for the whole District of Columbia as ITIN acceptance. My new company's name will start with A. After we all register this year, if a taxpayer enters my Zip code, there will be pages and pages of preparers. If I use Pacun for my name, no one will have the patience to scroll throw pages to find me. Keep in mind that your name needs to start with an A or B if you want new people to find you.

All the previous years the IRS has not been ready to process returns on January 1 when the tax season starts. They could easily blame it on the postal office in previous times. On the new 21st century when efiling is everywhere, the IRS should be ready earlier. Congress delaying the IRS seems to be the norm in the past couple of years and I hope they don't do it anymore because it slows down the jump start of the economy. Did you know the refunds from the IRS jump start the economy every year? It is bigger than any stimulus package since in a couple of weeks a lot of money is spent from refunds. My complaint is not about the forms not being ready. My complaint is that the IRS if forcing any one that prepares more than 100 forms to efile 100% and the IRS is not ready with efile when the season starts. As you can see, they might be a lot of us a bit nervous since they have not embraced efiling from the beggining. If I were one of those, I haven't started this post. I would also be reconsidering accepting new clients since efiling takes a lot of effort the first years. Again, since I efiling everything and I am happy with it, the new regulation doesn't affect me much. If I were the IRS this could have been my approach: If you prepare more than 100 returns for tax year 2010, you must efile 25% of all the returns you prepare. No opt out at this level. Next year you have to efile 50% of all your return and the following year, you have to file 100% unless the client opts out. Or they could have said, file 50% for tax year 2010 and 100% for tax year 2011. I understand that congress was late and I understand that the IRS is late with schedule A, which is the biggest one delay. I do understand that one is not IRS fault.

I got both of them. Each came like a week apart in December.

Does anyone know why they are using l instead of i on these new forms? At least that's what it looks like. I copied and pasted the form name and it looks OK, but it doesn't look OK when I go to irs.gov to see the form. I believe no one on this forum will have the economic waiver option since we all have internet connection already.

I prepared the returns today and I told them to come back next weekend since the IRS is not ready. They are happy with that since a paper return will take longer anyways to get their refund. For the last 2 years I have efiled every return whenever possible and I have explained to my clients the advantages of efiling. All of them have accepted to efile and I have saved a bunch of paper, staples, toner, paper jams and time since I don't have to wait for the printer to print. That's without mentioning the frustruation of paper jams and printer maintenance. I LOVE EFILING. My point is that the IRS is coming hard on preparers that are not ready for efile at full force. The IRS is coming hard on them and the IRS is not ready yet to efile and/or the form is not ready to have clients opt out and keep it for our records.

I understand that tax season will start for some taxpayers in February. That's why I stated this on my original post "My client is ready to file and all forms are available for him". I checked form 8948 from IRS and it reads DRAFT. Too many requirements from the IRS this year and it seems they are not ready.

It is a good idea at first look and that will FOR SURE eliminate the bogus PTINs because crooks will have access to ALL PTINs available. They will use a real PTIN from you and me depending on their location.

My client is ready to file and all forms are available for him, also tax season starts on January 3 and ends on April 18, 2011. IRS is not ready to receive efile but yet I am required to efile. Will they give me a break if I paper file this return? How about if I have 101 returns between today and Thursday?

The rules are the same. You can exclude 13K per donee and then you use the unified credit. If he dies soon, his estate might need to pull back those houses. I know you were clear on your question that the gifts were made after his wife passed away, but the question below is interesting and related. Question: Your client’s husband Henry passed away earlier this year. She has not remarried, and wishes to gift substantial amounts to her children before year end. No gifts were made by either spouse prior to Henry’s death. Can she use the gift splitting rules to treat the gifts as made half by herself and half by her deceased husband, in order to double the annual exclusion and applicable credit amount available for 2010? Answer: No. For purposes of the gift splitting rules, an individual is considered to be the spouse of another only if [§2513(a)(1)]: He (or she) is married to that other person at the time of the gift; and Doesn't remarry during the remainder of the calendar year. Thus, there is no splitting of gifts between persons who weren't married to each other when the gift was made. For example, gifts made by husband or wife during that part of the year in which they aren't married, or in which the donor's spouse is deceased, may not be split [Reg. §25.2513-1((1); Rev Rul. 55-506].

Now, I remember what a combine is. We used it for haversting rice. It cuts, separates and cleans the rice very nicely. We called it a combiner (combinadora). I thought a barn was like a building that you must recapture depreciation if needed. If I have seem that question before today, I would have thought that the correct answer was a combine. Thank you for the answers.

Email might sound good but link doesn't work.

Which one is not exposed to depreciation recapture? 1. Milk cow 2. Greenhouse 3. Barn 4. Combine In that sense, how are 2, 3, 4 used in a farm and what they mean?

A bit more than a week ago, I passed exam 1 (Individuals) and today I passed exam 2 (Corporations). I passed all 4 paper exams about 4-5 years ago and I believe the exam used to be easier. Maybe I felt it easier because you used to have previous exams available and now you don't have idea what they are asking. Another problem that I noticed is that they don't tell you how well you did unless you fail. What do you think about this? The IRS doesn't need to create new exams to test preparers this coming summer. All they have to do is to give the EA exam to everybody. If you pass the exams with a score between 60 and 80, you are a preparer. If you pass the exams with 80 to 100, you qualify as an Enrolled Agent.

I decided during Christmas that I was going to pass the EA tests before the season starts. I passed Individuals on Dec 29, and I take corporations in about 10 hours. I do not feel as prepared as I wish but I must take the exam. If I lose the $101-102 that I paid for the exam, it doesn't matter. Why am I doing it that way? I passed the four exams about 5 years ago but I didn't file form 23, and I just felt like trying it. I will also open a new LLC or S corp this year and open my doors on Jan 1, 2012. The new regulation about efiling doesn't affect me since I am pretty much in compliance. Not charging anything extra nor using any loans or credit cards for depositing refunds (Only bank accounts and paper checks on mail). Time to go back to study. One question can a $102 difference.

Nice picture. A picture is worth it a million of votes.

I do believe that we are called tax preparers, but the way it is coming down and quickly, we might be called tax filers just by signing the return. I love efiling and last year I only used paper on returns with ITIN requests and with First time home buyer credits. I did anticipate that soon States or the IRS was going to demand more efiling. I would feel really bad if I only efiled a few returns in the past because learning about efiling while under a big pressure to comply is not a good combination. We have talked about this subject before. Remember that someone was joking when it was announced that the IRS was planning to audit returns every 5 years? I said "do not under estimate the power of computers". Efiling will give the IRS, the funds and resources to audit a high percentage of returns every year and auditing everybody every 5 years is NOT beyond reach. The tax preparation profession has changed 5 days ago and it has changed significantly and FOREVER. Soon the IRS will know what kind of returns we prepared, what exams we have passed and it will match our qualifications vs returns prepared. IRS will have a pretty goods estimate on how much our business made from tax preparation. Also the IRS will slowly stop hiring data entry personnel and will hire more revenue agents. As you know revenue agents pretty much billable and data entry personnel are overhead. That's what companies are doing outside anyways and they IRS (as many government agencies) have been slow in adjusting to the www and technologies of the 21 century. As someone said, CPAs will have a lot of opportunities and as long as they stay out of trouble, they will make a lot of money with these new opportunities.

According to the statistics rules you only need 32 random votes to have a pretty good representation of what the whole population wants. It sounds funny but it is scientifically proven. Do you think when they predicted that Barrack Hussein Obama was going to win they polled everybody? I voted for splitting the forums but I think we are going to stick to one but we will use it more efficiently.

Based on the votes, I believe we will end up with only one forum. Now we have to be religious on labeling our topics accordingly and when you want to say hi to a "coming back" member, please start a new topic and leave the tax subject to continue. Based on these voting results, I feel like they way it used to be with CDs... you bought a CD for some good songs but then you got some other songs that you didn't like. EXCEPT that this CD is free and I am very thankful to ERC, KC and those who administer it. How about donating our first tax return fee to this forum, after all, most of us (if not all of us) haven't donated lately?

Back ups should be done regularly (depends on your business), should be tested at least once a year and a full back up should be kept offsite. Full back up means (in this context) ONLY the database folder for the current year. Since I only do taxes and on a part time basis, I install my tax software at home and at my two work places. On Feb 14, I make a full back up from my tax computer and copy it on the other 2 computers and test it. I do another similar backup on April 15th(last day of taxes) and in December. I would feel really bad if my tax computer crashes (let me rephrase that... my hard drive crashes or gets stolen) on the first two weeks of February and on the first two weeks of April but I will survive. Keep in mind that the probabilities of that happening is about two percent.

Adjustments are for 2011 NOT 2010.

about 4 hours ago, I read the email below from NATP. I have checked the 2010 1040 form from the IRS and it doesn't have any of the changes that NATP is talking about below. (I have not seen any mention of this before today ANYWHERE) This is from IRS: (As we speak) Form 1040 Department of the Treasury—Internal Revenue Service U.S. Individual Income Tax Return 2010 42 Exemptions. Multiply $3,650 by the number on line 6d . . . . . . . . . . . . 42 This is from NATP Inflation Adjusted Exemptions and Deductions Personal exemptions and standard deductions for tax year 2011 were released by the IRS. These inflation adjustments relate to eight tax provisions that were either modified or extended by the Tax Relief Act. Some of the adjustments include: The value of each personal and dependent exemption available to most taxpayers is $3,700, a $50 increase from 2010. The new standard deduction is $11,600 for married couples filing a joint return, a $200 increase; $5,800 for singles and married individuals filing separately, a $100 increase; and $8,500 for heads of household, a $100 increase. The additional standard deduction for blind people and senior citizens is $1,150 for married individuals and $1,450 for singles and heads of household, each an increase of $50. Nearly two out of three taxpayers take the standard deduction, rather than itemizing deductions, such as mortgage interest, charitable contributions and state and local taxes. Tax-bracket thresholds increase for each filing status. For a married couple filing a joint return, for example, the taxable-income threshold separating the 15-percent bracket from the 25-percent bracket is $69,000, up from $68,000 in 2010. The maximum earned income tax credit (EITC) for low- and moderate- income workers and working families rises to $5,751, up from $5,666 in 2010. The maximum income limit for the EITC rises to $49,078, up from $48,362 in 2010. The credit varies by family size, filing status and other factors, with the maximum credit going to joint filers with three or more qualifying children. The modified adjusted gross income threshold at which the lifetime learning credit begins to phase out is $102,000 for joint filers, up from $100,000, and $51,000 for singles and heads of household, up from $50,000.

I think the forms are not ready yet and that's why you don't roll over properly.