Lee B

"Paychex announced Paychex Voice Assist, a new voice feature for its Paychex Flex SaaS solution that allows for hands-free functionality for payroll processing. Working through any Google Assistant-compatible device — whether smart phone, smart watch, smart speaker or smart TV — Paychex Voice Assist uses the sound of a verified user's voice to do things like starting a pay period or acting on one already in progress, applying standard pay, making adjustments, reviewing totals, and submitting payroll for processing. Admins can also receive real-time notifications with payroll data insights, review and adjust hours and pay rates, and submit checks for payday." I can't stretch my braIn enough to imagine doing payroll "hands free" How have I survived 46 years of banging on a ten key, a typewriter, a calculator and a keyboard.

I believe startup expenses relate to being in or beginning an active trade or business. This taxpayer may or may not be in or starting an active trade or business. If not, I would either add it to the cost of the property or it would be not deductible.

According to the Tax Foundation there are 7 states who don't automatically reconnect where forgiven education loans may end up being taxed.

That's why I helped my second largest corporate client , because their bank a northwest regional bank was ignoring them, not returning their phone calls or emails requesting help with obtaining a PPP Loan.

If they filed a 1099 NEC, I assume this was for 2021? Yes, the payroll needs to be cleaned up and amended Quarterly Reports W-2s and etc need to filed.

If he was working in my state for 2 months, he would have to register with the Construction Contractors Board, providing proof of liability and worker's comp insurance and post a performance bond. He also might have to pay several different district and or local SE taxes.

"NEW YORK, NY (Sept. 22, 2020) – The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), its business and technology arm, CPA.com, and fintech leader Biz2Credit today announced they are teaming up on a new platform, CPALoanPortal.com, to streamline the process for CPA firms advising small businesses both on loan forgiveness under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) and additional small business financing options that clients may need to fund growth." I used Biz2Credit for 2 PPP Loans for my 2nd largest corporate client. I saw a number of different CPA Firms online promoting their PPP Loan related services with a base fee of $7,000.

Actually I understand how that could happen. When I became a Controller for a good sized beer distributor/food wholesaler after being a Staff Auditor for a Big 8 Firm and an Accounting Supervisor for a Forest Products company, I had never worked with or audited payroll. Fortunately I had a very experienced bookkeeper who took care of all of the payroll related tasks.

"The Comedy Store filed a lawsuit against its accounting firm, alleging that it missed out on receiving at least $8.5 million in COVID-19 relief funds due to “misrepresentations, gross negligence and misconduct.” According to the suit filed Tuesday in Los Angeles Superior Court, accountants Moss Adams, based in Seattle with offices in Los Angeles, misrepresented its “expertise and knowledge about” the federal COVID-related relief program and failed to inform the Comedy Store that the application to apply for the government grants was closing in August 2022." Moss Adams is a good sized West coast regional CPA Firm. I handled the PPP Loan applications and the forgiveness applications for 5 different small business clients. At our size we tend not to think about the risk of handling things like this

I agree, the speaker at your seminar doesn't have both oars in the water. If you don't mind sharing, who was sponsoring the seminar and who was the speaker, so that I can avoid them!

"The federal Military Spouses Residency Relief Act allows spouses of military servicemembers to travel with the servicemember to the state where the servicemember is stationed, keep their residence in their home state, and claim exemption from income tax in the state where they work, generally by filing a form, Medlock said. The law was amended at the end of 2018 by the Veterans Benefits and Transitions Act (Pub. L. 115-407), which allows the spouse to assume the servicemember’s state of residence for tax purposes upon marriage." This appears to be an exemption from the state income tax not from employment taxes. Also see this article: https://www.claconnect.com/en/resources/articles/2021/tax-surprises-with-work-from-home-policies

Fortunately, all of my payroll client's employees work and live in Oregon. Not planning on doing any payroll for other states.

"the IRS reported Monday it has reduced the number of unprocessed individual returns received this year to 8.7 million, as of Aug. 19, and it's now opening mail within normal time frames. In addition, it has caught up on the backlog of millions of unprocessed paper tax returns from last year and said all paper and electronic individual returns received prior to January 2022 have been processed if the return had no errors or did not require further review." "According to mid-August figures reported this week by the IRS, the 8.7 million unprocessed individual returns received in calendar year 2022 include both tax year 2021 returns and late-filed tax year 2020 and prior returns. "Of these, 1.7 million returns require error correction or other special handling, and 7 million are paper returns waiting to be reviewed and processed," said the agency. "This work does not typically require us to correspond with taxpayers but does require special handling by an IRS employee so, in these instances, it is taking the IRS more than 21 days to issue any related refund and in some cases this work could take more than 120 days." " As of Aug. 20, 2022, the IRS reported it had 1.9 million unprocessed Forms 1040-X with amended tax returns. "We are processing these returns in the order received and are working hard to get through the inventory," said the IRS. "The current timeframe can be more than 20 weeks instead of up to 16 weeks." I guess it's progress although its sloow. I still have a response to a CP2000 mailed in mid December that's still processing?

If their Earned Income and their AGI are both under $21,430, they could still potentially qualify for for the Single/No Children EIC.

No, I have never had a client ask me about data security. When I suggest things they could change to improve their own security they just stare at me and don't say anything.

I usually don't send out communications this time of year. I took an online class last week that covered the Residential and EV Tax Credits which mostly go into effect on January 1st 2023. The changes are substantial and have too many layers of detail which will definitely confuse clients. So I am seriously considering sending out a letter asking my clients to contact me before they assume that the salespeople they are talking with actually know what they talking about I have one client who twice in the past five years spent money on their house based on a salesperson telling them they would get big tax credits. They were shocked when I explained to them that their projects didn't qualify. Of course they had no paperwork from the company or the manufacturer. When they called the companies who did the work, they were told that their projects didn't qualify and surprise, surprise the salespeople they dealt with didn't work there anymore.

That's the way I have handled my S Corp PPP loans.

There are a few legitimate reasons to take social security early but we also need to make sure clients understand the reasons for delaying social security.

I have found the self study seminars to be the most helpful, because you have to take and pass a test in order to get credit. Online webinars where you have click a button or answer a multiple choice question every 15 minutes are acceptable at best. Sitting in an uncomfortable chair trying to pay attention is definitely at the bottom. I used attend an excellent all day Federal Tax update put on by the OSCPA every year in January, but they have raised the fee to well over $ 400!

My annual Oregon renewal fee for my office and myself is $225 plus 30 hours of required continuing education every year. i have been a member of NAEA several times but for me it was never cost effective, since there isn't a local chapter of NAEA even though our immediate metropolitan area has a population of of about 300,000. I do most of my continuing education via self study and online webinars at a cost of about $300 per year. I regard it as a cost of maintaining my competency and providing my clients good advice and service . Not every tax issue comes up every year. Without classes how would I keep up to date with the changes and issues I haven't dealt with for a few years?

That's because every year is indexed for inflation which won't be announced for another 4 to 6 weeks. Although some states that administer their own marketplace have their own 2022 calculators up.

My reading is that this is relief for "failure to file" but not relief for "failure to pay"

Note: This applies to tax years 2019 and 2020.

No, I was referring to the original post.

Frankly, I found the original post a bit light on details.