Lee B

It seems to me that they have been recruiting CPAs and EAs for several years now.

Exactly, just had Charles Schwab do precisely that for my own QCD's earlier this month.

Yeah, when they instituted "Support Chat" as the next best thing to sliced bread, that was the last straw for me.

I apologize, I just assumed it was fairly current.

"Microsoft Has Stopped Trying The Microsoft Security Essentials website promises “comprehensive malware protection” and “award-winning protection,” so users would be forgiven for believing that Microsoft was committed to making MSE a capable antivirus solution. But Microsoft is now saying that MSE is only basic protection that users shouldn’t rely on. In an interview with Dennis Protection Labs, Holly Stewart, the senior program manager of the Microsoft Malware Protection Center, said that Microsoft Security Essentials was just a “baseline” that’s designed to “always be on the bottom” of antivirus tests. She said Microsoft sees MSE as a first layer of protection and advises Windows users to use a third-party antivirus instead. According to Holly Stewart, Microsoft “had an epiphany a few years ago, back in 2011, where we realized we had a greater calling and that was to protect all Microsoft customers.” She says that Microsoft passes its information on to other antivirus makers and helps them make their products better. “We used to have part of our time directed towards predicting test results,” but these people have now been directed to focus on emerging threats and share that information with other antivirus companies. She went on: “We’re providing all of that data and information to our partners so they can do at least as well as we are. The natural progression is that we will always be on the bottom of these tests. And honestly, if we are doing our job correctly, that’s what will happen.” Nevertheless, she argues that “baseline does not equal bad” and says they provide a high-quality antivirus. But Microsoft themselves are recommending users not use MSE, so it’s hard to take that seriously. This isn’t a product average people should use — it’s better than no antivirus, but not something we should recommend. Microsoft is doing a disservice to its users by telling antivirus testing companies that they don’t recommend MSE for average users and telling average users that MSE provides them with “comprehensive malware protection” on their website. Microsoft needs to pick one message and stick to it." Excerpted from an article in How To Geek: https://www.howtogeek.com/173291/goodbye-microsoft-security-essentials-microsoft-now-recommends-you-use-a-third-party-antivirus/

My understanding is being a "Real Estate Professional" is of no benefit as far as the determination of QBI.

I have a client, mid seventies, who is a retired American Airline stewardess. As part of her retirement benefits, she receives free flights. Prior to 2017, AA issued a 1099 to her for the value of the flights. Beginning with 2017, the IRS required AA to issue a W-2 for the value of the flights, including FICA withheld. Who knew ?

The House has just reduced the TCJA Technical Corrections/Tax Extenders Bill from 297 pages to 253 pages. `Woah, democracy in progress !

First the the 20 % PTE deduction is taken on Form 1040 on the lower of QBI or Form 1040 Taxable Income. Therefore you could have positive QBI and zero taxable income resulting in a zero PTE Deduction.

Just realized that we have the same scenario as last year, the Tuition and Fees Deduction was only extended thru 12/31/17. An extender bill will have to pass for this deduction to be effective for the 2018 Tax Year.

On my Charles Schwab account, voice pattern authentication is now being offered and encouraged. How it works is a password phrase is repeated 3 times and recorded. From that point forward, you have to repeat that phrase in order to authenticate who you are . It sounds promising, but if hackers could access the servers where those phrase recording were kept, then even this could compromised.

I must say, you gave your buyer a fantastic deal .

Five or six months ago I had my hard drive on my Win 7 Pro 64 Bit system replaced by an SSD, which was cloned with no issues.

Excerpted from a long article in the CPA Journal : https://www.cpajournal.com/2018/12/06/icymi-the-equifax-data-breach/ Why Is This Breach Different? "Over the past decade, over 3 billion people’s personal information has been hacked from email providers like Yahoo or retailers like Target. The Equifax breach, however, is the first in which the “big four” personal security identifiers—name, address, birth date and Social Security number—were stolen from so many at once. These are the security authentication foundations for many commercial and other purposes (Robert Lemos, “Identity Verification Becomes Trickier in Wake of Equifax Breach,” eWeek, Sept. 11, 2017, http://bit.ly/2yMVLOu). Possession of these identifiers may increase two forms of identity theft: new account fraud and account takeover. In new account fraud, a criminal uses the identifiers and possibly other information to open new credit accounts in a person’s name; the target does not find out until his credit rating is wrecked after the bills go unpaid. The aggravation, costs, and time spent on the resulting credit repair can be significant. In account takeover, the criminal uses the four identifiers to impersonate someone for various purposes, including creating fraudulent transactions. To CPA firms, one of the more familiar frauds of this type is the filing of phony income tax returns to steal tax refunds. In some cases, local CPA firm computers have been breached, enabling thieves to successfully perpetrate this type of fraud. Recently, account takeover has been used to steal cell phone numbers, which can compromise multifactor authentication (MFA), an important cybersecurity best practice (Nathaniel Popper, “Identity Thieves Hijack Cellphone Accounts to Go After Virtual Currency,” New York Times, Aug. 21, 2017, http://nyti.ms/2jws7dq). MFA requires providing authenticating information in a manner different than the initial authentication; for example, some websites will, after the user has inputted her password, send a second verification code via text message that must also be inputted to log in. Another MFA method requires that the initiator make a call from a predetermined phone number; unfortunately, such a phone number can be imitated, and the security of the MFA rendered ineffective. Weak MFA approaches could lull CPAs into a false sense of security. Many accounting software programs rely on two-factor authentication for sign-in or to reset forgotten passwords, and an increasing number of these programs enable the electronic transfer of funds from bank and investment accounts. With this type of account takeover on the rise, it may be wise to revisit the use of cellphone text messages for MFA, as well as explore more secure approaches. In previous major breaches, the public attitude has generally been to accept the risk as the price of convenience. The Equifax breach, however, has taken public frustration over weak cyber-security to unprecedented levels (Ron Lieber, “Why the Equifax Breach Stings So Bad,” New York Times, Sept. 22, 2017, http://nyti.ms/2jvZvkT). The breach is beginning to instill general fear that the cybersecurity underpinning electronic commerce cannot be trusted." Recently, I talked to an Investment Adviser with Key Investment Services who was no longer allowed to email clients for any reason. Any emails sent to him had to go thru a security review process that significantly delayed his receipt of emails from clients. I have also read several articles where more than one highly regarded IT Security Expert said that he had stopped using email due to all the hacks and scams that are everywhere. Another article estimated that in a another year or two that in excess of 80 % of all emails worldwide will be generated by scammers & hackers. Be very careful out there, the world has changed. We will have to adjust.

I don't know about your state, but in my state of Oregon the answer is yes. I have a client who bought a unused school, refurbished the building and leased it a private nonprofit school and obtained the exemption.

Article on multiple news sites today: "The Marriott International hotel chain said on Friday that the database of its Starwood reservation system had been hacked and that the personal details of up to 500 million guests going as far back as 2014 had been compromised. The hotel group, which runs more than 6,700 properties around the world, was informed in September about an attempt to access the database, and an investigation this month revealed that unauthorized access had been made on or before Sept. 10, Marriott said in a statement. The hotel chain said that personal details including names, addresses, dates of birth, passport numbers, email addresses and phone numbers for hundreds of millions of guests may have been compromised. The investigation found that “there had been unauthorized access to the Starwood network since 2014,” and an “unauthorized party had copied and encrypted information, and took steps toward removing it,” the statement said. Hackers also obtained encrypted credit-card information for some customers, but it was unclear if the hackers would be able to use those payment details. Marriott said it wasn’t sure how many passport numbers and dates of birth were stolen but said that it was a “subset” of the larger number of affected consumers. The hack affects customers who made reservations for Starwood hotel brands from 2014 to September of this year. The properties include Sheraton, Westin, W Hotels, St. Regis, Four Points, Aloft, Meridien, Tribute, Design Hotels, Elements and the Luxury Collection." The hackers seem to be winning. Saw an article a day or two ago that said during 2017 one out of every 6 personal bank accounts had at least one fraudulent incident during the year.

The individual penalty ends with tax years beginning after 12/31/18, so we all will likely have clients that will have to pay the penalty one last time. All of the business related penalties remain in force, since the rest of the ACA is still unchanged law.

In the past I remember seeing a few posts on the ATX Board of users having a third party host the ATX software, which of course ATX does not support.

A new wave of fraudulent emails that purport to be from the IRS and financial institutions is trying to entice recipients to open documents containing computer malware, the agency said in its latest warning on tax scams. The malware, known as Emotet, generally is disguised as an email containing a tax transcript from the IRS, banks, and other financial institutions. The goal of the scam is to trick recipients into opening infected documents, the agency said Nov. 19 in a news release (IR-2018-226). The IRS, along with its Security Summit partners, said the scheme is especially problematic because the malware may infect a computer network and take months to successfully remove. In recent weeks, the email indicates it was sent from “IRS Online.” The scam email carries an attachment labeled “Tax Account Transcript” or something similar, and the subject line uses some variation of the phrase “tax transcript.” These clues may change with each version of the malware, the IRS said, adding that a substantial amount of malicious Emotet emails recently were forwarded to [email protected]. The U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team issued a warning in July about previous versions of the Emotet in Alert (TA18-201A) Emotet Malware. The group called the destructive software “among the most costly and destructive malware affecting state, local, tribal, and territorial (SLTT) governments, and the private and public sectors.” As a reminder, the IRS does not send unsolicited emails to taxpayers, including a tax transcript, which is a summary of a tax return. Taxpayers should not open an unsolicited email or the attachment. Suspected fraudulent emails should be deleted or forwarded to [email protected], the agency said. Employees receiving such emails on an employer’s computer should notify the company’s technology department. The warning from the Internal Revenue Service and its Security Summit partners was part of an ongoing campaign to provide ways to protect sensitive data and prevent tax fraud. The summit, which was formed in 2015, combines the IRS with representatives of the software industry, tax-preparation firms, payroll and tax financial product processors, and state tax administrators to fight identity theft and tax fraud. If it looks suspicious, it probably is ! Let's be very careful out there !

It's really a function of what kind of client base you have and where your pricing currently falls. All of my PTE clients are getting healthy increases, but even that varies depending on how I had them previously priced. My 1040 clients will be getting a 5 to 10 % increase. Really my pricing is more based on complexity and level of value provided.

"The IRS released Notice 2018-92 on Monday, providing interim guidance for 2019 on the income tax withholding rules in the wake of the decision to delay the overhaul of the Form W-4 until 2020. The notice also asks for comments on some of the new withholding procedures. It indicates that the IRS is planning further regulations to update the withholding regulations to reflect the changes made by the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act." I am sure we will all forward a copy of this 13 page masterpiece of clarity to each of our wage earning clients, who will thank us profusely for our timely assistance.

Our community has a very successful nonprofit called Nextstep that recycles everything electronic or electrical including household appliances, resells the ones that are still functional and reduces the nonfunctional to the recycable components.

Have not used as a tax preparer, but I have used it as a recipient for several legal documents. It seemed to work fine.

Not so fast grasshopper. Let us remember the list of proposed technical corrections to the TCJA, on which Congress has shown no urgency to deal with. Same Old Stuff !