Terry D EA

I have a separate monitor on the desk that I turn on for the client to view their returns. At that time I go over every line on the tax return that has information pertaining to their specific circumstance. The paper copies 20Lb good paper, and put them in a nice folder, like Catherine, I use the ones from Tennez. Also, I agree with Jack as a lot of my clients seem to misplace their copies. However, there is something to be said for professionalism and I have had many banks in my area comment on how neat the client's documents are. Just to add, I have a client who spent an enormous amount of time serving on a Jury for tax court cases and he told me to never stop reviewing the returns as the folks that used the excuse their preparer prepared the return and they trusted them didn't hold water with the IRS. Their comment and question was why didn't you the taxpayer know what was on your return. I prefer my clients know what is on their return. Yes, I have those that say just print it I trust you, but I make them sit through the review anyway.

I will be looking at several programs. I did look at Drake a couple of years ago and it seemed like there would be a major learning curve. Due to various reasons and obligations, I didn't feel I had the time to learn it. That is different now so thanks for the suggestion.

KC- I would never think you suggested or implied for me or anyone do anything unethical. It may not seem like it, but you and I have been around on this board and the older ATX board since 1998 and I am sure that I know very well that you wouldn't advocate filing anything incorrectly so I do apologize that I didn't see the sarcasm in your response which I should have. I will ask about the marriage certificate as I didn't think about that. The waters were muddied a bit with the granddaughter now having educational expenses which she states only she paid approx. 500.00 and no one is sure who paid the rest. Form 1098-T shows amounts billed of 8k and scholarships of 3161.00 and she doesn't know where the rest of the money came from to pay for her schooling so I can only take the 500.00 + 3161.00 as the actual amounts paid for the AOC on my client's return. It just doesn't get any better than this.

The granddaughter is a full time student and is qualifying child as I stated in my original post. But... thanks for asking.

Thanks Nellie and I did check the Schedule C to see if the active participation was checked and it is. Thanks again for your willingness to try and help. It is appreciated.

I too have been using the OneDesk program for three years now with this being my last. I have had minimal problems as well. OLT has provided different forms, made changes and other things I have asked for. I know this wasn't OneDesk simply because OLT is the provider of OneDesk. I must say, that Dan's support started falling off at the end of the season last year. I didn't get an offer to renew from him just a recorded message late in the fall. Apparently I have done something to cause this which is a ridiculous thought cause I don't know if anyone else gets treated this way. Anyway, no whining, they lost me and my business and I'll pursue another software package. If OLT can deliver than they may be the ticket. What really bothers me is I received other offers and turned them down. Oh well, that is the hind sight thing.

Yes, this is a Schedule C disregarded entity.

I have to agree with you. I guess I have confused my own thinking with the MFJ thing. While sometimes taxes and regulations don't make sense or applying common sense is a dangerous thing, the wording and check box entries would suggest just any other filing status could be used and doesn't negate the dependency. Heck I can't even get the adding machine to feed paper correctly so maybe I need to get away from ALL of this stuff for the day.

Yes, business income limitation is filled in with the proper calculated amount. When I look at the Federal Worksheets, the total amount of the 179 elected cost shows correctly. Nothing is getting placed on the 4562. The entire section I is blank. I have worked with this so much my eyes have crossed back and forth 15 times. I even overrode the business income limitation to a lesser and high number and still nothing flows.

I know this and if you read my other posts, it was discussed with the client as a possibility and she needs to be prepared. So, are you saying here that married dependent could file a MFS return to get the refund? Ex-hubby won't cough up the SS# so the only choice would be paper. Am I understanding you correctly?

Okay, I have reached a plateau with Dan at OneDesk support which is the proverbial I'm not using their software ever again. Two and a half weeks ago I made phone calls for help each day for three or four days and left voice mail messages on every support phone number given to me and no return phone calls and I mean absolutely none and apparently not even an attempt. I called today to discuss the 179 expense situation with proper entry. Again. no phone calls. I left a message stating when I would be available on Monday and I will not hold my breath waiting on a return phone call. Matter of fact, the more I think about this the angrier I get. What the hell have I done to deserve to be ignored????? Dan if you read this board, you know you made, and committed to an offer with me that you were unable to follow through with. You blamed it on your supervisor which I asked for your supervisor's name and number to call me and that never happened. Bottom line, you made an offer and a mistake should have sucked it up and made your offer good. That is the cost of making a mistake when doing business. I apologized to you for my anger with the situation, immediately met your and your supervisor's requests and by your choice to continue ignore me apparently indicates that meant nothing to you. Because of that situation, I informed you that my desire to re-purchase at the end of the tax season would be clouded to say the least. Apparently you do not want my business and you have made that very clear. So, moving forward, I have contacted OltPro and have been advised as to the person I need to talk to in an attempt to get help with my current issues. I will see if they are interested in keeping me as a client and can fix my issues on Monday Feb 22. In the mean time, I am going to be looking deeply into the support agreements with OneDesk for any source of remedy against you for not supporting a product that you sold that is directly costing me lost time and revenue as I struggle to complete some tax returns.

Does anyone know how to get the 179 information to flow to the form 4562? I have tried every 179 related entry on the input screen and the amounts do not flow to page one of the 4562. What am I missing here? Help please.

Agree, but I did present this to them several times and they insist that the baby's daddy doesn't know the baby's SS". Even at this, I informed them that I would know within 10 mins or so as to whether he did or did not claim the baby. My initial take was granddaughter files paper MFS return. She should still get the refund but... doesn't that negate the dependency for my client? The regs only mention a married dependent filing a joint return to obtain a refund.

>>>>>>>Without knowing the income of the husband, I am not sure if your client can claim granddaughter as a dependent. She should be able to claim the just born baby as a dependent and qualify for EIC. I would have to consider support to make her HH. <<<<< I would agree with your concern but, the husband will not communicate at all and refuses to provide any information other than his return was filed and filed as single. Isn't there some ethical requirement to file an accurate return?? I want to be careful here as I really trust and appreciate your comments and judgment and have done so for years. I agree the return would probably go thru but I don't feel right doing so.

I found it difficult to assign the title line to this post so it didn't sound as though it would be a very simple situation. I apologize for the lengthiness but here is the scenario: 1. Client and granddaughter have lived together in the grandmother's home for all of 2015. 2. Granddaughter gives birth to a daughter in July of 2015 who obviously also lives with grandmother. 3. Granddaughter gets married in July of 2015. 4. Husband and granddaughter and great granddaughter live with grandmother for the remainder of 2015. 5. In January 2016, husband and baby's father splits. Here is where things begin to get messy. Husband files 2015 tax return as single which we all know that was done incorrectly. Also, the husband refuses to give his social security number to allow his soon to be ex-wife (granddaughter in No. 1) so she can file MFS. Granddaughter's income is 5400.00. Here is my take on this: Grandmother (my client) files HOH and claims the dependency exemption for her granddaughter and the baby. They meet all of the tests. Granddaughter is the qualifying child and dependent and can be as her income is below $6300.00. Grandmother gets the EIC and child tax credit for the baby. Granddaughter is 19 years old. I think all is well here correct? Granddaughter could have been a dependent filing a MFJ return just to get a refund of $229.00 that was withheld. Can't do that because husband filed a single return and will not provide his SS#. Am I keeping things straight here? Should or could the granddaughter file a "paper MFJ" return with a statement that the husband refused to give the SS#. I think I have had my head wrapped around this too long which is clouding up my thinking. Opinions please.

This was alI I was saying to begin with. I agree do the balance sheet but don't submit it wrong. Yes, the client should have an accurate balance sheet for his/her records but....just saying.

My software has the diagnostics as well and I can't imagine either that any reputable program doesn't have them. Considering Jack's statement that he may be overriding might have some truth to it. I do think you should back out of this as gracefully as possible so you don't drive yourself nuts. I understand where you are coming from and I would feel the same way if I sold my business and subjected my very long time 18+years clients to someone who is so incompetent. I really don't have an answer that fits or lessens the frustration you are feeling other than you have to take care of yourself and try to be confident that your past client's understand your situation. Prayers for you going up.

Yes, but if your anal like me, I would create a statement to go with the return, or the client copy, that shows each SSA1099 and their respective amounts.

It seems to me the missing piece of the puzzle here is the liabilities. You did not list any which doesn't satisfy the account equation. You are correct the partner's capital account increases by the net income. But again, where are the liabilities? If there are no liabilities you could balance by debiting the cash account. However, did you get an ending cash figure? I always provide the balance sheet with all 1065 forms. However, in this case if it is not required by the IRS because the receipts were under 250K, then I would lean toward not including it if I had any doubt as to the accuracy or if there were any missing information.

Take Judy's advice here. Totally agree with her.

This LLC would appear to be a partnership, if so, you should use form 1065 and form 8825 to report the rental activities. As Judy pointed out, check out the other thread to see if that will help you. With this said, if the husband and wife LLC is only a single member, it should default to a disregarded entity which a Schedule E would be the form to use.

Just my 2 cents worth. Get the signatures definitely.

Thanks Rita, that sounds to be the best way. Just right out front, here it is.

I had an earlier post commenting on the MFJ vs MFS comparison feature for 2015. I originally stated it appeared to be working correctly. Now, I want to retract that statement. I did one this evening that the program did not calculate the SS benefits correctly. It calculated the SS benefits as "0" amount taxable. When I did the worksheet manually, the taxable portion was 10,200.00. Kinda made me look real bad in front of a client. Once I re-entered the information for the MFJ return, the program did calculate it correctly the second time. Watch this thing!!!!! Not happy about this and will let Dan know if he bothers answering the phone or returning a phone call.

Thanks for the replies. It only makes sense that extra work requires extra fees. I plan on keeping the additional fees small but enough to justify the time. Again, just wondered if we were all on the same page.