Lee B

Copied from today's AICPA Town Hall: "Earlier this month, Maryland Attorney General (AG) issued an opinion on whether assistance by a CPA with BOIR would constitute the unauthorized practice of law (UPL). Determined that it’s fact specific and provides guidelines • What is NOT UPL: • Raising awareness • Guiding clients through FinCEN’s FAQs/Compliance Guide • Filling out the BOIR based on client information • Answering client questions where the question and answer “do not call for legal knowledge or skills” • CPA “generally should not answer a BOIR-related question for a client where there is uncertainty as to the answer and resolving that uncertainty would require legal knowledge, skill, and judgement”

The return may have been flagged due to all the tax credits on the return which may be considered to be an indication of a fraudulent return?

I disagree. The IRS still has way too many old systems that don't work together. They are currently scrambling trying to update all of these systems and get things under control. There is no way to tell if they will be able to accomplish that, but they are trying. Things could actually be much worse which would be a disaster of epic proportions.

https://www.gao.gov/blog/artificial-intelligence-may-help-irs-close-tax-gap#:~:text=AI models are already being,estimate of the tax gap.

According to the GAO: "AI models are already being used to help select a representative sample of the taxpayer returns to audit. AI is also being used to identify returns that are more likely to have errors and are more likely to owe additional taxes. After these audits, as described above, IRS creates an estimate of the tax gap.Jun 6, 2024"

TIGTA audits show that over 20% of all EITC claims are fraudulent. There is a lot of Congressional pressure on the IRS to reduce fraudulent claims of tax credits which is why this kind of stuff happens, unfortunately.

Something in their enhanced electronic screening process triggered this response, which requires a live IRS employee to review the return and take action. Due to all the fraudulent credits being claimed, this is an unfortunate part of filing personal tax returns these days. Their long range solution is to incorporate AI into their enhanced electronic screening process. Gosh, I wonder if the AI will have hallucinations?

Correction - This was the annual report from the National Taxpayer Advocate not from TIGTA.

Copied from the annual TIGTA Report "As of April 2024, the IRS was taking more than 22 months to resolve identity theft victims’ assistance cases, plus several weeks to issue refunds, and it had approximately 500,000 unresolved cases in its inventory" The IRS is still playing whack a mole

Another simple option would be for the Square Dance Club to buy the facility and have your friend cosign the loan

See Pub 4681 - page 14

If your friend just rents it to the square dance club, the situation would be much less complex. Who knows 5 or 10 years from now how relationships might change, In addition, your friend could rent the space to anyone. Why make it so complicated?

Quote from the FINCEN BOI Fact Sheet: "Reporting companies have 30 days to report changes to the information in their previously filed reports and must correct inaccurate information in previously filed reports within 30 days of when the reporting company becomes aware or has reason to know of the inaccuracy of information in earlier reports."

Years ago, I was successful negotiating, however I had the same salesperson for many years. He did have to get his manager's approval. I was able to get the early renewal discount in November several times.

Do the buyers need to maintain a good working relationship with the seller because if the seller ends up angry as a result of a % allocation, it might cause problems for the buyers.

How will you handle the issue of buying "stock" instead buying "assets" with your potential client? Could have significant tax differences?

I totally agree, if the current owner is your client, wouldn't you have to advise him to close the books on the date of sale. In fact, if the seller was my client I would write a CYA letter. The other big issue is "conflict of interest." There is no way you can advise both the seller and the buyers. The differences between an "asset sale" and a "stock" sale how the seller and the buyers will be effected could be quite dramatic!

Perhaps you should call ATX Support

The only business/rental clients that I am not notifying are Schedule C or Schedule E filers.

I agree, If the client's original intent was to obtain long term financing and the bridge loan was just a step forward in that process then the the closing costs from both loans should be combined.

A similar problem has been happening in Oregon with April 15th extension payments not showing up on clients accounts when the final tax return is filed: "Thank you for sharing this recent practitioner experience. I checked with Megan Denison, Administrator for Personal Tax and Compliance Division, about this example. I learned that this experience can happen when payments and notices cross in the mail, or if payments take a little longer to post to an account. This is not uncommon, and it was explained that the best solution is to check the Revenue Online (ROL) account if a person receives a letter, to see if the issue is cleared up. " -Marjorie Taylor, Legislative Director Oregon Department of Revenue

What kind of property is this, personal, investment, rental or business? Was this a purchase or a refinance? What were the proceeds used for, interest tracing rules do apply?

I am sending a short letter with a 2 page attachment to all of my clients that potentially qualify.

"How do I access my att.net email? Access your email on the web Go to currently.com. Select Mail. Enter your email address and password. Get your authentication security code. If you have more than one phone number on your account, choose which number should get your code. Enter the code and click Submit to sign in." It looks like your email will be . . . . currently.att.yahoo.com

I think they are trying to increase their profits by forcing users off Win 10.