Christian

An older retired couple recently married. They lived in different states with her moving to Virginia late in the year. They advised they would file MFS for 2023 which seemed ok to me. His wife reputedly worked for H&R Block in the past and wanted to file her own she said so ok to that. This year the husband comes in with his info only. I advised him that filing jointly would likely be the better option since filing MFS but living together was by my reading of the law not a great idea. He said his new wife had not filed a return in years to which I replied that so long as she fell beneath the filing requirements there was no problem. Two problems occur to me in this matter. If he files MFS can she simply not file assuming her income is below the filing requirement limit ? Secondly in reading the regs on couples with Social Security income filing MFS looks to expose more of that income to tax if the couple lives together which seems odd. I would like clarification on this point as I myself could have misread the regs. As you may guess I have never seen this particular situation in the years I have been in business.

Well if you set the vehicle up for depreciation does the Fixed Asset module offer you the Vehicle Expenses module ? It was formally a choice offered when you went to line 10 of Schedule C or Schedule F.

I too have done that on Schedule C and F with no problems. For some reason on a Schedule F I recently used I was offered no choice for the Vehicle Expense form but was directed to the Form 4562 to use the fixed asset feature. I have no need to depreciate the client vehicle.

Where has our simple Vehicle Expenses form used for the standard mileage rate gone off to ?

So the phase out limit for singles begins at $50,000 which is of course one half of the MFJ amount of $100,000 ?

Well then at their modified AGI they do not get any deductible loss and have to carry it forward. My thinking was that a married couple had a limit of $150,000 before the $25,000 began to phase out. The $100,000 limit applies to couples ? The $75,000 limit applies to singles ? No rental clients I have dealt with ever reached the applicable limit on the $25,000 allowed so regrettably I must have misread the applicable limits. I thank you for clearing this up and will review the material referenced by you. The 8582 clearly shows that when their $192,000 AGI is subtracted from the $150,000 limit wallah they get no allowed loss for 2023. I am assuming going forward the loss can be applied to years in which they show a rental profit.

A client couple has approximately $192,000 in modified AGI for 2023. They have a rental loss of some $6,500 for last year. ATX shows none of this loss as deductible even though I checked box 8 for active participation. In doing the math $192,000 - $150,000 = $42,000. $42,000 times 50% = $21,000 of the $25,000 loss allowed if their MAGI was less than $150,000. $25,000 - $21,000 = $4,000. ATX does not show the $4,000 as an allowed deductible loss on Form 8582 with the remaining $2,500 loss carried to next year. Have I missed a toggle or what ?

I always have them mail them in so no problem there and will advise that even though the estate bank number is provided they will likely get a check.

A daughter has been appointed executor of her late father's estate and has of course set up an estate checking account. Will the Service direct deposit his refund to this account or do they send a check only ? I see no reason why they would not the return is going in with the required Form 1310 and court certifications but I like to make sure.

Ah Abby such a treasure you are.

I was thinking it was in the 2% category which was formally used on Schedule A. Well trying to help a client never hurts. Many thanks.

Ac client has come in who is a highly skilled mechanic employed by a large truck sales dealership. She receives a W-2 each year as an employee but curiously must provide the tools she works with at her own expense. Her costs in 2023 for these tools is close to $4,000. The question here is are these tool expenses deductible for her and if so where on the return. She is not self employed so I am left wondering if these expenses are in fact deductible.

For the life of me I cannot find the toggle to suppress printing zeroes in the two year comparison report. I have checked preferences and all over and cannot find it.

Resolved. Upon recreation of the efile with the corrected info the system deletes the rejected efile and you simply transmit the corrected one.

A client has provided an incorrect SSN for her newborn child which has caused a rejection by the Service Center. If memory serves I simply return to the original return and correct the number. I then recreate the efile and resend. However, do I delete the rejected efile before or after I send the replacement. I hardly ever receive an efile rejection and want to make certain I am handling this correctly without a foul up.

Well I am going ahead and figure her return allowing both credits which I had thought rightly was correct. The manner in which the regs were written are less than clear. Much better to say a child born in a specific year who qualifies as a dependent qualifies for the respective credits regardless of their birthdate in that year.

I referenced this to the PPS and they came up with this from Pub 596 "Birth or death of child. A child who was born or died in 2023 is treated as having lived with you for more than half of 2023 if your home was the child's home for more than half the time the child was alive in 2023." The child was in mom's womb for nine months of 2023 but surely was living with her. Strangely they did not come out and say the child qualifies for the EIC advising I might consider filing a paper return. I am of the opinion I can enter 12 months in my ATX software in the dependent section and proceed from there. Their thought may have been that since entering 3 months in the software it would not allow the credit my solution was to have her file on paper which meant I could show him as 12 months of residence by penciling it in.

A single mother client just had her second child on October 7, 2023. He is of course a qualifying dependent but not having lived in the home for over six months can she get the EIC for him. If memory serves she gets both the EIC and the Child Credit for him but it never hurts to make certain. She already claims HOH as she has an earlier child already.

An unmarried couple who reside in the same home now have two children. They would like to each claim one of their children and file as HOH. Since they both will be reporting the same physical address on their returns I am none to anxious to file their returns this way. I feel sure many of you are running into this issue and would appreciate what solution you came up with.

He is out of employment for some time and needs the money. I was a bit skittish about using the "Where's My Refund" function to obtain refund info on a client.

I rarely have need to check the status of a client's refund after efiling their return. However, a client has come in down on his luck and badly needing his refund. I do not bother with credit accounts for well known reasons. I told him he can predate one of his checks on his checking account for like ten days down the road and when his refund hits his bank account I would cash it. I could check "Where's Your Refund" but likely not a good idea. Does ATX have a system in place that advises practitioners when their client refund hits their account ?

Yep sure does and of course the IRS has sent a list evidently provided by Ebay of each item and what she got for it. Needless to say it will not be yours truly sorting all that out.

A client's daughter sold a bunch of items on Ebay and now has received a listing which shows over $11,000 in items sold. In my tax education this year I read that the IRS had suspended tax on these earnings for 2023 much as was done in 2022 until congress could decide a more reasonable amount for these earnings to tax. Am I correct on this and does someone possess an article on this. I recall reading it in Kiplinger's and intended on saving that issue but health issues this year served to confound my usually good work habits.

The client called the Service at the number provided and advised the Service associate he had contacted the fiduciary and requested a change. I expect no change so will continue attaching the Form 5329.

His broker's back office advised his advisor that for legal liability reasons the code could not be changed. Go figure.