Lee B

Scholarships can come in flavors, (a) restricted usually to pay tuition or unrestricted when means that you can use them to pay expenses like room & board, potentially leaving the tuition & fees to qualify for credits.

7 and 1/2 years ago I paid $5,000 to replace an old driveway with a nicer than average new driveway. Now the cost would be close to 10,000.

If it has a property tax assessment then you probably have two components, Land and Land Improvements, one non depreciable and one depreciable.

If that's the case, why has tax software been reporting the disposition of unamortized stuff on the 4797 for years. Never had a problem with doing it this way.

I have always disposed of the asset and let it flow thru the 4797 to line 14 on the 1040. I have done this many times without any problems.

They are not exemptions. They are "Allowances" After skimming thru the Instructions, I suspect that most taxpayers will just put down the the number of exemptions they previously claimed in 2017. This so called "Allowance" point system is so convoluted that this might become a new revenue stream for accountants.

Question: In 2018 with no more exemptions, will a child going to college at least half time and working, with the parents providing more than 50 % support, being a dependent for other purposes be able to claim the single standard deduction of $ 12,xxx ?

Judy, Catherine & Terry, Thanks for the tips. Between right clicking on the client's name in the client manager and the efile reports I will figure it out. After 20 years of looking at the ATX Efile Manager and scanning the columns looking for exceptions my mind wasn't adapting very well

Longtime ATX user. The messages I am receiving from Drake about state acks are very unclear to me. I have a number of returns where the fed acks have been received but I am very unsure as to what is going on with the state acks . What is the easiest way to check the status of state acks ?

You don't mention, a. the date of the separation agreement, b. whether the restaurant operated in 2017, c. whether your client has a 2017 K -1 coming ?

Based some reading I did last summer I believe there are certain kinds of loan modifications that can generate a taxable 1099C Your client would have received lots of information spelling this all out. Either way you need to ask your client for all of the info which hopefully they saved.

I am so impressed, it's only taken 6 months !

One interesting wrinkle that I read about several days ago. Scenario: Two houses - First is the taxpayers home borrowed $500,000, second is a vacation home borrowed $250,000 so the combined amount is within the $750,000 limitation. 1. Taxpayer has a 1st mortgage of $500,000 secured by home # 1 and another 1st mortgage of $250,000 secured by home # 2 resulting in all mortgage interest being deductible. 2. Taxpayer has 1st mortgage of $500,000 secured by home # 1 and 2nd mortgage of $250,000 also secured by home # 1 but the proceeds were used to buy home # 2, in this case only the interest on the first mortgage is deductible because the 2nd mortgage proceeds used to buy home # 2 was not secured by home # 2.

Engineers and Architects were specifically excluded from this limitation, very similar to the DPAD.

If you are referring to 2018 estimated payments, I believe several users have said they are printing the 2018 estimated payments coupons and then deleting them from the return so that they can efile.

Ah, what's that sound in the distance ? Oh, it's the black helicopters.

If you discover allowable depreciation that was never deducted then a 3115 is the right solution.

I don't want delve into politics, but the additional documentation requirements were imposed by Congress not the IRS.

Copied from Accounting Today: "The Trump administration’s fiscal year 2019 budget proposal includes increasing oversight of paid tax preparers along with more authority for the Internal Revenue Service. The budget proposes $11.1 billion in base funding for the IRS, including $2.3 billion for running key tax filing and compliance IT applications and $110 million for IT modernization efforts. The budget also requests additional funds for new and continuing investments to expand and strengthen the enforcement of the tax laws. “Taxpayers are increasingly turning to paid tax return preparers to assist them in meeting their tax filing obligations,” said the budget document. “Ensuring that these preparers understand the tax code would help taxpayers get higher quality service and prevent unscrupulous tax preparers from exploiting the system and vulnerable taxpayers"

They say they are still waiting on the IRS.

ATXWendi reposted this this morning: "You may want to call into customer support to have them address this issue. The section 179 limits have been dropped from Fixed Assets. If you are comfortable, this KB link from last year gives the steps to correct the issue (substitute 2017 in place of 2016), but it involves deleting program files so they can be re-downloaded. These are the steps customer service will do for you if you call in. https://support.cch.com/sfs/solution/000057508 Alternatively, you can type in the limits, but they will then be treated as overrides and may not update if we have to issue updates (which happens as the states legislate in the spring). The limits are in Fixed Assets, Asset Global Settings for federal and then click on the State Calcs tab for the state data" Apparently update 17.3 did not fix all of the Form 4562 problems !

Try turning off your firewall and security programs to see if it makes a difference. If it helps, then exclude all ATX Files from the scrutiny of your firewall and your security programs.

That's been a recurring problem for some users for the last 2 or 3 years. Basically due to sloppy programming, the ATX program fills up your print cache with garbage. When your print cache overflows, the program crashes. By rebooting your computer your print cache is cleared allowing the program to work again. If you know how, you can clear your print cache without rebooting.

I do remember reading a Tax Court Case where the employee was required by his employer to keep parts and supplies in his garage so that his first customer service call did not require him to go to the employer's shop. In this case the taxpayer prevailed and it was not commuting, so make sure you ask questions and make sure you have all the facts.

Oregon is very similar to Delaware except that it does increase the standard deduction, although it is still very low. I often do Oregon returns for the high school children of clients who didn't make enough to file a federal return.