Gail in Virginia

I have also been hanging around, and checking to see what someone else would post. I hope that your eye improves, bstaxes, and I hope that they can either figure out what caused your episode or else you never have another one, necpa. My husband has been dealing with atrial fibrillation attacks since last February and he finally had a cardiac ablation done in September hoping that would cure the problem. He has had two attacks since then, but they tell me that it takes about three months for the scar tissue to fully form to prevent the attacks so I am still hopeful. And I am thankful that he is otherwise healthy and with me. During tax season we all post more frequently, I think, as we have questions and need our electronic "water cooler." But the support and help on this board is one of the things that I am thankful for in this Thanksgiving season.

I believe that if a student has a Coverdell Education IRA, they can also use funds from that for any educational expense required, including computers and books. And this is available for Kindergarten through College if I am not mistaken.

How was your friend's LLC filed at the federal level? If it was a sole member, and he filed as a Sched. C sole proprietor, VA would expect an individual VA tax return beginning with the federal return's AGI. IF there was no income for the individual, then VA will probably not question the lack of a return since they begin with the federal AGI.

If instead of clicking on the post, you click on the dot to the left of the post topic, it takes you right to the first unread post in that topic. After that, if instead of going "Back to General Chat" you click on "Next Unread Topic" it takes you to the next unread post in the next topic.

http://www.phoneslips.com/home.aspx We use Phone Slips for scheduling, as well as addresses and telephone messages. I know the latest version is 64 bit compatible, but I am not sure what the limit is on entries. It is limited in number of users as well (at least the version we use is.) It might be possible to buy additional licenses. The program itself is extremely easy to use, with almost no learning curve. And the price is reasonable, IMHO.

There was a rumor in this area last year that one of the tenants in a section 8 housing unit had purchased Turbo Tax to do their tax return. They noticed that if they increased the amounts on their W-2, their EITC went up. So they played with the program until they were getting the maximum amount of refund. Then they helped all of their friends by doing their taxes for them. I don't think that filing the 8867 will help with fraud like that. Nor will my asking more questions. Unfortunately, if people decide to cheat they can only be stopped after the fact, if then. By the time the IRS matches the real information to what was put in to get the most credit, the people involved will probably have moved on, or at the very least the money will be long gone.

And I am thinking that if there is no actual trust instrument, just the will, then the granddaughter inherited the assets but did not have control over them due to the trust. Therefore, her will (if she had one, not likely under 18) or the laws of intestacy in Texas would control and the assets would go to her next of kin. But I am not a lawyer nor am I from Texas. I hope you get better assistance from someone more qualified.

Why not a gift card to their favorite restaurant? That way they can celebrate their anniversary on you!

If that ever could be done, I don't think it is an option any longer. According to the IRS website, the 1023 has to be filed and the user fees paid in order to reinstate the organization as an exempt organization. I think the reinstatement can be made retroactive if the missed filings are sent in with the application for exemption. You might want to look at the FAQs on the website at http://www.irs.gov/charities/article/0,,id=221600,00.html for information. A revoked exemption is when a non-profit organization that is exempt from taxation under section 501( c)(3) has its exemption revoked and is therefore no longer recognized as an exempt organization.

I like that suggestion, Mike. The topic is broad enough that it might generate more than just an occasional post, and yet it does define a topic other than tax questions.

But he has never been in the business of creating and selling software - he worked for a large company as a programmer. Not sure that is the same thing at all. To the best of my knowledge, he was never a software developer. We are talking about somewhere in the neighborhood of $26,000 US. I also don't think that a one time payment like this will increase his benefit, but if it is self-employment it would result in paying back part of this benefits this year (maybe - the work was actually complete several years ago, the software was just purchased this year.) Thanks for the reply, Pacun.

I got a call the other day from a client who runs a local non-profit. Seems her husband wrote a software program a couple of years ago and let another non-profit have it gratis for their use. Somehow,the non-profit changed hands, or management, or something, and the new "owners" were so impressed with this program that they wanted to purchase it. They have therefore wired the money to purchase it to my client's husband. The company purchasing the software is Australian - which doesn't really matter, except that I have no idea what kind of reporting they will do for this income, if any. Now, normally, I would expect this to be schedule C income subject to self-employment tax if the creator of the software is in the business of creating software. But while he used to work as a programmer, he now "works" only for this non-profit and is actually taking his social security early because the non-profit business just doesn't pay very well. I remember reading something about former presidents who write their memoirs not being subject to SE tax on their royalties from the books because they are not professional writers. Would this be a similar situation? Does anyone know how I would report this and have any documentation for that method? If it is subject to SE tax, it will also affect how the social security he can draw this year.

And actually EA's are required to have more continuing education under that status than the RTRP's will be required to have under their status. We are required to have 72 hours every 3 years, with a minimum of 16 hours per year, two hours of which every year must be ethics. RTRP's will be eventually required to have 15 hours per year, two hours of which must be ethics, three hours of which must be tax updates, and the other 10 hours can be any thing related to other federal tax law. CPA's have their own requirements for continuing education.

Until the property is sold, I don't think that you know what the forgiveness is. If they sell if for the FMV, then yes the forgiveness is $20K. However, if they bank only nets 2 million, then the forgiveness would be 620,000. At least that is the way I think that it works, and that is why you don't know until you get the 1099C what the forgiveness of debt is going to be - you have to find out how much the bank actually wrote off for the customer. I am not expert on this, but before this "downturn" is over, we all might have to become experts.

And it doesn't make sense to me that they would start imposing competency requirements of their own now - why not just say you have to be allowed to prepare federal taxes to be allowed to prepare the state? If they weren't worried about competency before, I see no reason to start now unless it is just a revenue generator.

Congratulations! Twins - how exciting! I hope everyone did well and is healthy, and that you all stay that way! Thanks for all that you do on this board, and be sure that you keep the emphasis on family first - we can wait!

If you are doing a corrected W-2 anyway, why not correct the misspelling?

Joe, the rule about beginning distributions at age 70 and 1/2 applies to IRA accounts. Defined benefit pension plans are a different breed of animal altogether, and are largely governed by the plan documents. I don't believe there will be any penalties associated with his failure to receive benefits as far as the IRS is concerned, but you might want to consult someone local to your father about his specific situation. Particularly if this is a large employer in his area, you might be able to find someone who is familiar with this particular plan and can give you definitive answers to your specific questions. Asking general questions on a tax professionals board will only get you general answers at best, and without knowing all of the details can sometimes result in erroneous answers.

And is there any chance that with the death of his wife the taxpayer can make a case for innocent/injured spouse? My sympathies also, Tom. It is difficult to think clearly about taxes at a time like this.

I have a client that uses a separate payroll account for confidentiality reasons. They use QuickBooks for their accounting and several employees have access to it for different reasons. They hired us to do the payroll, and want the payroll account that shows up on the accounting at their location to only reflect totals as opposed to showing each individual paycheck. We keep the detailed records here and reconcile the checking account for payroll. I think they could accomplish much the same thing with the proper use of passwords and assigned authorities within QuickBooks, but they prefer doing it this way. :dunno:

My guess would be that PAL stands for Passive Activity Loss, but without knowing the situation that is just a guess.

:lol:

I think that is interesting information. Can you provide a web site or other source of information where we can look at which states owe how much in UI debt? I am curious now that you have raised the issue.

If I remember correctly, ATX won't let you mark both boxes on the same return ( or at least it wouldn't the last time I tried.) In that case I normally just mark the final box assuming that the IRS will know from when they issued the EIN that it is the initial return, but won't know it is final unless I tell them on the return. Besides, on fiduciary returns you don't get the standard exemption on the final return so that box is really important in the calculation as well as the information.

Not sure I am clear on what happened. Did the son win a prize for a Grand Champion steer he had raised, or did he win a prize which was a grand champion steer?