Lee B

Medical debt is already one of the leading causes of personal bankruptcy

If you have clients who buy their health insurance through one of the Marketplace Exchanges there are a number of changes.

The annual enrollment window has been shortened by one month

No more automatic re-enrollment - everyone will have to resubmit all of their documentation every year.

The Premium Tax Credit repayment cap will expire at the end of this year.

The Enhanced Premium Tax Credit also expires at the end of this year.

So far Congress has not renewed the large Premium Tax Subsidies paid to Health Insurance Companies to hold down the health insurance

premiums of health insurance offered on the Marketplace Exchanges.

54 minutes ago, kathyc2 said:

 

I was just livid about the email SSA sent out.  Waaayyyy too political of a statement and extremely misleading coming directly from an agency that's supposed to be apolitical. 

 

The barn door is closed on that horse

https://taxpolicycenter.org/briefing-book/what-are-social-security-trust-funds-and-how-are-they-financed

https://sgp.fas.org/crs/misc/RL33028.pdf

https://www.congress.gov/crs-product/RL33028

If your client qualifies to amend 2021, then the 2021 Recovery Rebate for his son may also be in play.

30 minutes ago, kathyc2 said:

I don't think it will.  If that were true they would have needed to change the code section that authorizes payment from general fund to trust fund and the formula used.  

The Committee For a Responsible Federal Budget and a number of other analyses that I have read say otherwise.

 https://www.crfb.org/blogs/obbba-would-accelerate-social-security-medicare-insolvency

"However, OBBBA would impact Social Security and Medicare indirectly, mainly by reducing the revenue collected from the income taxation of Social Security benefits, which is deposited into the Social Security and Medicare trust funds.1"

1 hour ago, Catherine said:

I still have, in deep files under lock & key, a set of tax forms sent to me in the mail - with the little sticker with my name, address, and ssn on it.  Remember those? (That year I had moved so I did not use the sticker.)

Wow, I had totally forgotten about those

I see what you are saying but I disagree because this deduction will reduce the taxes paid on social security benefits which are dedicated to the Social Security Trust Fund.

Under the OBBB, only 90% of gambling losses will be deductible.

I'm sure there are other tax tidbits that will pop up.

Different analyses that I have read say that it reduces the percentage of seniors who will pay taxes on their social security benefits from about 40 % down to about 12 %.

The same analyses say that the social security trust surplus will be gone in 7 years (2032) since taxes on social security benefits are dedicated to the trust fund

Garnishment for up to 50 % of their benefits will begin on July 24th for more than One Million Social Security recipients.

Here's the link to their sales department:   https://www.id.me/business/industries

"Never miss a discount again. Get the ID.me extension.

Let the ID.me Shop browser extension find Military, Nurse, Responder, and Teacher discounts for you while you shop."

Seriously for only $50 per month you can use ID.me to verify your clients identity up to 40 clients a month, $1.25 per each additional client

I have been giving this issue a lot of thought.

I am definitely opposed to giving all of my personal information to a company that sells their services to police departments.

On the other hand ever since the Equifax Data Breach followed several years later by my state Dept of Motor Vehicles Data Breach,

more than likely most of my personal data is already floating around the dark web.

If they have done away with paper filing Form W 12, then I will have to give in and sign up with ID.me

a company that started out selling coupons in competition with Groupon

8 minutes ago, Abby Normal said:

You need ID.me or login.gov to access SSA and IRS. I did both a few years ago. I don't recall it being too hard to do, but then I am fairly computer savvy.

You can access the SSA and EFTPS with login.gov. I am not aware of any other IRS functions that uses login.gov

Although I have never done it, last year you could renew by mail by filing Form W-12.

I haven't received an email. However the PTIN site is down until July 7th due to updates?

G2R 

Thanks for sharing this disaster with us.

 It certainly puts a different perspective on whether or not to use IP Pins

Copied from the Tax Advocate's Mid Year Report to Congress:

"One longstanding filing season challenge that remains unresolved is lengthy delays in resolving identity theft cases. There are two categories of identity theft cases. One involves returns that IRS return processing filters flag as potential identity theft; the IRS flagged about 2.1 million such returns. In these cases, the IRS sent a letter to taxpayers notifying them they had to authenticate their identities before receiving their refunds. The IRS typically takes several months to resolve these cases.

In the second category of identity theft cases, a thief has stolen a taxpayer’s identity and filed a tax return using the taxpayer’s name and Social Security number. These taxpayers are victims and may also be experiencing the effects of identity theft beyond the context of their tax returns. Their cases are referred to the IRS’s Identity Theft Victim Assistance (IDTVA) unit for resolution.

As of the end of the filing season, the IRS had about:

387,000 IDTVA cases in inventory, and

the cases were taking an average of about 20 months to resolve.

“These delays disproportionately affect vulnerable populations dependent on their refunds to meet basic living expenses,” the report says. In fiscal year (FY) 2023, 69% of affected taxpayers had adjusted gross incomes at or below 250% of the Federal Poverty Level."

Sometimes my mind really struggles to understand this stuff

2 minutes ago, Abby Normal said:

Treat these as distributions to shareholders, unless you can convince them to repay the business.

Exactly, for tax purposes the creation and involvement of the LLC is just a smokescreen for their dancing hobby, which is not a business!

Copied from the TIGTA Report

"FY 2023, cases worked by TAS generally met its acceptance criteria and taxpayers’ issues were fully addressed. However, we found TAS case advocates did not timely contact taxpayers or their representatives in 103 (63%) of the 163 closed cases we sampled. The initial and subsequent contact delays for these cases totaled an average of 146 calendar days late."

"The National Taxpayer Advocate stated that TAS case advocacy is facing three challenges: rising case volume, new staff, and outdated systems."

Well, this is really discouraging

Also see this article in The Tax Advisor:   https://www.thetaxadviser.com/issues/2019/apr/llc-spouses-partnership-joint-venture/

We don't know when the LLC was set up  or when the Trust was set up.

Has the LLC previously been filed as a 1065 or as a Schedule E?

1 hour ago, ILLMAS said:

Two weeks ago I called the IRS in regards to a notice my client received which I have third party designee, guess what I had to conference call my client to discuss the notice.  First in all the years of doing business, the payroll report was filed in April 2025 so it was not expired.

"Designates a person on the taxpayer's tax form to discuss that specific tax return and tax year with the IRS."

My understanding is that this only allows you to discuss what's on the form submitted.

It doesn't authorize the IRS to share any information with you or for you to represent the taxpayer.

I don't believe that responding to a notice received by your client is covered by being a third party designee.

Honestly for the last several years,  my experience once I have reached an IRS employee has been satisfactory.

Does it take too long to get someone on the phone ? Yes it does.

Does it take too long for them to find an answer or to change something in one of their programs? Yes it does.

However given the old systems they are still working with that don't share information, I think they are doing the best that they can under difficult circumstances.