Gail in Virginia

Actually, I got a call Tuesday on my cell phone. While I was attending the IRS Tax Forum at National Harbor. I laughed. But it really isn't funny - people fall for this every day, which is why they keep doing it.

Maybe we could get congress to do away with filing status - everyone files their own return based on their own income with no dependent exemptions or special tax rates according to filing status. If you own assets such as rental property or stocks/bank accounts jointly, you must each report 1/2 of the income. Then it won't matter whether you are married or to whom. Never happen.

I just looked at the website for your church's ASP volunteers. Wow. You guys sound so organized and I love all of the training before you go in using tools, and actually having a practice work day where you build wheelchair ramps. I don't know if this is ASP required, or something that your church does, but I think it is a great idea. Our church just usually sends a list of what to bring with you and goes, with no training for anyone until they are on site. I hope that you won't mind if I share that web page with some of our leaders - I think it is a great practice to follow!

Nice in theory, Pacun, but my husband and I have not been on the same insurance plan in years. So if we were minded to lie about our marital status, the insurance would not be what tripped us up.

I looked at the link that you provided, and I really could not find anything about itemizing deductions in that link. After chasing through some other links, I did find a power point presentation from the UN about paying US taxes that, on slide 44, tells employees that they make all efforts to minimize their tax to qualify for reimbursement, including using the larger of standard or itemized deduction. See http://www.un.org/Depts/oppba/accounts/tax/forms/us_tax_reimbursement_procedures_at_unhq.pdf

I agree with MDEA - it is usually married people telling me they are single I have a problem with but I don't know how to get someone to prove a negative. If we originally had them as married, I could ask to see their divorce papers but we had one gentleman that I did his return for 10 years filing him as single, his previous preparer had filed him as single on the return that I saw when we started with him, and then he came in and asked me to notarized some paperwork for another state because he was getting divorced. To me that is a much bigger problem.

I am curious - why do they have to itemize? I don't have any UN employees as clients, and I am not likely to, but I did not think anyone (other than MFS spouse of someone who itemizes) was required to itemize. I can see it might be advantageous.... but why required?

Thanks for sharing that link. It was fun reading some of the arguments that people were making both for and against the SCOTUS ruling.

Is anyone attending the IRS Tax Forum in National Harbor? I plan to attend.

If he has a desk, he needs a chair. How much more than a normal office chair is this going to cost? It looks to me like he might be able to at least depreciate the part of the cost that relates to having an office chair for his desk. If the massage part of it increases the cost/fmv appreciably, then that part would have to go on schedule A as a medical if prescribed by a doctor. Of course, everything depends on how you look at it but I believe that I could defend that position on audit.

Tom, I read it the same way BUT it sounds like she had $638K in income, and even after taxes had $250K left to build a house. Now maybe you don't think $638,000 sounds like a lot of income but it does to me. Now had she not taken it as a distribution and paid the taxes on it, and it was sitting there waiting for her retirement, I don't think it would have been income and caused a problem with ACA eligibility.

Catherine, I have not signed up yet but unless something changes I expect that I will be attending. I hope to see you there!

From the Virginia Department of Taxation website: Corporations that have elected S status for federal purposes are automatically treated as S corporations for Virginia purposes, and must file their returns on Form 502 by the 15th day of the fourth month following the close of their taxable year. All other corporations file on Form 500. The Virginia Form 500 must be filed by the 15th day of the fourth month following the close of the taxable year, except for nonprofit organizations, which file by the 15th day of the sixth month following the close of their taxable year.So unlike New York, once you have elected S status for federal purposes, you are automatically treated as a pass-through entity for state purposes as well.

The instructions for the POA (form 2848) have the phone numbers for faxing the form to the CAF unit. I usually wait about a week before trying to access the transcript to give them time to record the information. Sometimes I have gotten it faster and sometimes it has taken longer.

Another option might be available if you plan to attend one of the IRS tax forums. They will have a case resolution program there where you can talk to someone from TAS face to face. If you don't resolve this before then, and you plan to attend the forum, that might be an option.

My laptop currently is a Windows 7 Toshiba. If my wrist happens to touch the touchpad while I am typing, the cursor can do strange and wonderful things. This is not an operating system issue as much as it is a touchpad issue.

Virginia had that requirement last year.

I remember how much I hated the change from MS-DOS to Windows. It took me forever to get used to Icons instead of .bat files. For a long time, I would go into the DOS emulator instead of actually using Windows. Now I would not want to go back even if I could. Sooner or later, I will get on board for touch screen pc's.

One way to show you are serious about changing domicile is to change driver's license, car registrations, and voter registration. If they change their minds in a few years, those things can be changed back but are easier to "prove" since there is no state return for FL than changing doctors, etc.

I think that you could conceivably make an election to report savings bond interest on the mother's final return as opposed to the income being in the estate return, assuming she was a cash basis taxpayer and had not been reporting the interest all along. From Publication 559: If the bonds transferred because of death were owned by a cash method taxpayer who chose not to report the interest each year and had purchased the bonds entirely with personal funds, interest earned before death must be reported in one of the following ways. The person (executor, administrator, etc.) who is required to file the decedent's final income tax return can elect to include all of the interest earned on the bonds before the decedent's death on the return. The transferee (estate or beneficiary) then includes only the interest earned after the date of death on its return. If the election in (1), above, was not made, the interest earned to the date of death is income in respect of the decedent and is not included on the decedent's final return. In this case, all of the interest earned before and after the decedent's death is income to the transferee (estate or beneficiary). A transferee who uses the cash method of accounting and who has chosen not to report the interest annually may defer reporting any of it as income until the bonds are either cashed or reach the date of maturity, whichever is earlier. In the year the interest is reported, the transferee may claim a deduction for any federal estate tax paid that arose because of the part of interest (if any) included in the decedent's estate. I hope that helps.

​Actually, I think that is the ultimate goal - to have everything reported to the IRS, no deductions allowed because we have gone to a fair tax system, and the IRS will just bill you if the withholding doesn't match what you owe. I am not holding my breath for that to happen, but that is what some people are hoping for.

You make some very good points that I had not considered, Michael. i usually do a 1065 for partners, even husband and wife partners, just because that is correct. Now I have even more reasons to do that.

It does sometimes seem like brokerages and PTP's have a spy at the IRS that tells them as soon as the return has been filed and accepted so they can then send either this unexpected K1 or a corrected 1099. Must be some kind of joke that I don't understand. I ain't laughing.

Actually, I have a client that had one that was a registered tax shelter with low income housing credit . They saved a bundle in taxes over the years, and I think now they are actually getting a small amount of income from it. That is the only one I have ever seen that I thought was worth the trouble, and I think that the same situation now would not lead to the same results due to the changes in the tax laws. But it has given me a lot of respect for the investment adviser that client uses.

I don't use ATX, so I can't be sure. You said you completed Sch. I. Did you complete Part I and Part IV? Would it be at all helpful on Part III to show "none" as the type of grant or assistance to individuals and 0 as the number of recipients and amount? I don't really know what you need to do that you have not done. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯