Max W

This biggest problem with these RE gifts by relatives is determining the basis, as records rarely exist.

Just to settle what happened when - 2001 was the 1st yr to have the tab option on the left. We have software going back to 1996 and 2000 did not have the option.

An EA I know here in Mass who specializes in OICs recommended to me several years ago to put in a very lowball offer, get it rejected, and get to Appeals as quickly as possible. The idea is that only the folks in Appeals have any real authority to negotiate -- the "regular" office staff are only able to agree to near-full-payments.

That might have been good strategy a few years ago. Then, the IRS threw up all kinds of barriers to getting an successful OIC, but now they are working to get them approved as quickly as possible. This was due to the TAO's report that said the IRS was losing out by rejecting so many offers.

In our office, we have submitted about 30 OIC's and so far 10 have been approved with little or no hassle. On my part, I have submitted 14 OIC's and the 1st 4 were approved. I expect a few to fail, clients that were not able to provide concrete information or unable to keep up on their Est. tax pymts. There were some minor tweaks in the final amount, but nothing worth disputing.

Most surprisingly one client had more income than what the IRS accepted. He receives quarterly bonuses and the IRS said bonuses do no count in the income calculation. (we always understood this for once a year bonuses, but for regular ongoing bonuses?, the IRS made the client a gift.)

If, after explaining all the reasons, I lose clients, it will only be for one season. The will be back which will mean an additional increase for them. I am priced very competitively, even with a 20% increase. I don't want clients that only come to be because I am the "cheapest" preparer. My value as a preparer has increased with all the additional classes and learning to cope with the new things, and I am a professional and expect to be paid.

If I raise my prices 20%, and lose 20% of my clients, I make the same money and do 20% less work. I would also loose clients that do not appreciate a professional.

The math is incorrect. If you have 100 clients and charge $100 that = $10,000. Reducing clients by 20% = 80 clients x $120 = $9600. So, you lose $400.

Are you kidding? Upper case only has been the recommended standard for any official government forms since I was a sophomore in High School.

Now for those of you slow on the uptake, No two upper case letters look enough alike to be mistaken for each other.

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

I was curious to see if government forms all had upper case letters, so I looked at about a dozen IRS and state letters sitting on my desk and the names and addresses are ALL upper case. The body of the text is mixed.

Invariably I use Upper only on the tax returns except occasionally will cut and paste a long street address from our contact file.

You may not have done anything wrong, but that will not stop the other side from trying to prove that you did. You have no idea what is in store for you when you are being sued.

The summons is most certainly for a deposition. At the deposition you will be asked all kinds of questions to try to draw you into a net. An experienced attorney at your side can keep you out of trouble. But, that will not be then end. After the deposition, you will receive another long list of questions - the Interrogatory.

From these, the opposing attorney will build his case and take it to court commissioner to show the need for a trial. If he is able to do that a trial date will be set. Depending on the court calendar, the trial might no take place for 2 or 3 years. Then, just prior to trial, there will be a settlement conference where the judge will mediate a monetary settlement. Failing that, the case would proceed to trial which could be by jury or only the judge.

The trial could last several days, longer if it involves jury selection. With all this in mind, you would have to decide at the settlement conference whether it is less expensive to settle out of court, or proceed, standing on principle, and be faced with mounting attorney fees.

Now, after trial, it may not be over yet. The other side could file an appeal and that could take another 4 to 6 years before that is decided.

Yes, it is a nuisance, but a very expensive one.

According to the following web site, the form does not have to be filed if it is for stock options.

http://www.accountalent.com/?p=429

The company RCG is a high powered detective agency. Since they have a copy of the tax return, they must have gotten it from the mortgage lender and they are investigating potential mortgage fraud.

If the investigation results in a lawsuit or criminal prosecution, you could very likely be called as a witness to confirm or deny the accuracy of the tax return.

You should try to recover your records (don't you have them archived on a disc?), because failure to produce them could set suspicious minds to working on a conspiracy to defraud.

Therefore, my suggestion is to contact an attorney.

There may be no tax issue here at all, because there may not be any money coming from the insurance. Since the policy was paid in full at the time it was created, it is probably a term policy, so there is no cash value. The corp is/was the beneficiary only in the event that the key person, the son, died. This did not happen.

Then, even if there is a possibility of collecting something, how does the son go about changing the beneficiary?

The first step is for the son to find out if there is any possibility of collecting anything.

Look at how it all started, with only 404 pages of code.

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-prior/f1040--1913.pdf

First of all, your info is a little sketchy. However, I doubt that you will be able to get any offer accepted, in the near future. because you are not taking into account what the IRS calls collection potential. You are only taking into account the ability to pay and assets and, if you were taking in the yearly depreciation as an expense, you should know that the IRS does Not allow depreciation to be figured in on an OIC (the trucks should be fully depreciated by now).

Every year filed has a CSED date, that is the date that each year expires and the tax for that year goes away. It sounds like that the returns were filed in the last year or so. This gives the IRS almost 10 years to collect. So, the IRS is in no hurry to accept an offer. If there were years that were about to expire, then it would be a different story.

In my opinion, you client would be better off to; 1. close the business and restart under a different name, EIn,etc. A closed business OIC is much easier and only the assets would have to be taken into account as there is no income; 2.enter into an installment agreement, then 5 or 6 years from now do an OIC; or 3. filing bankruptcy.

All of these options should have been fully investigated before jumping into something that appears to not be in the best interest of the client.

Eight dollars? I would forget about it. The max tax impact on a Cal return is 80 cents.

Try inputting 0.01 - this should round off to Zero.

If you send the child's return in before Apr 15, it is a Corrected Return and not an amended return. I would not use the 1040X, but write Corrected Return across the top. Then wait 3 - 4 weeks before filing the parent's TR.

Unless they are RDP's (REGISTERED domestic partners) in CA, file each as Single. End of problem.

HRB is definitely the best way to go for a basic course (66 hours). Not only is the course material excellent, the teaching methodology facilitates rapid learning. Additionally, most of the instructors have lots of tax preparation experience. Block has the highest standards requiring an 80% passing grade to be eligible for employment by them.

For courses in corps and partnerships, HRB charges a hefty fee for persons that are not Block preparers, for whom it is free.

The Tax Book, Deluxe, takes you step by step through the 1065 and 1120's tax returns, which, although not a course, will help to get you started there.

All of this is based on my experience with HRB over 10 years ago, so current things may be different.

You should be using Injured Spouse, not innocent spouse. Client is 'injured' because refund will be offset to pay student loan which is not his.

It is standard practice with the IRS to do audits for 2 or 3 years at a time.

I just finished one for 3 year which were all handled together.

The last 2 years may still be open, otherwise a determination letter would have gone out.

Even if an audit is closed, it can be reopened with an audit reconsideration.

The fact that a different examiner was assigned to the last 2 years means nothing. The assignment comes from the manager and the other examiner could be retired, dead, moved to another office or have too much of a work load.

The IRS has a procedure to make sure that all the TP's records come under the SSN.

http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/Additional-ITIN-Information

Scroll down to - What do I do when I am assigned a social security number (SSN)?

this should eliminate any possibility of rejection of the X returns

If the statement about the provenance of the eagle are correct, then it would have been legal to sell the artwork.

Legislation making it a felony to sell a bald eagle dates from 1940. However, "The statute explicitly excepts from its scope possession of any bald or golden eagle taken prior to enactment." According to Rauschenberg, the eagle came from the early 1900's. Certainly, with the scientific dating methods available today, the bird's age could have been determined within an acceptable margin of error. Apparently, there are no scientists working at the IRS.

Fore EA's & CPA's - cpedepot.com

It is $149 for one year, unlimited credits. If you time it properly you can use it for two seasons.

For ex - getting it now would allow you to do the 2012 requirements and before the subscription expires

next year, you could do 2013.

This is the way the IRS puts its burden of doing their job onto the tax preparer.

We are essentially auditing the income and expenses of the client and being held responsible if something does not turn out correctly.

Small wonder that there are preparers who would shy away from doing these returns. They put a number of subjective elements into the presentation - 'Apply a common sense standard to the

information provided by your client

- Evaluate whether the information is

complete and gather any missing facts

- Determine if the information is consistent;

recognize contradictory statements and

statements you know not to be true

These are the kinds of instructions that are int the IRS audit guidelines.

The IRS should not be allowed to put such a heavy onus on the preparer and a tax preparer protest is in order.

If they succeed in this, what comes next? What new area will they impose on us?

Water wells have a 15 year MACRS depreciation.

Big Charts only goes back about *12 years, so it is of no help if the transactions was prior to that.

Companies that have gone out of business, have been merged, or delisted from the exchanges will

not be found either.

This includes companies reorganized after a Chapter 9 bankruptcy; ie General Motors. You will not find any quotes for GM prior to Nov 2010.

*checked GE and could only find quotes from 2000 on.

There used to be a publication of historic stock prices going back 60 years that was available in the reference section at any good public library.

You might try calling around and see if a library has it.