michaelmars

first off you should use both of your names.  that way they get used to yours and you can fade his out in time.  if he is staying to help with the transition then you should announce it as a merger.  selling points to clients, more staff, larger pool of knowledge.  better quality control with double checking.

The most important thing is if you can include the purchase of his phone number in the deal since many will keep using it and clients you didn't purchase, ie ones that he might not have done the last year or 2 might come looking for him.

I think you are in queens, is this the practice that was for sale in the Elmhurst area?

for all on-line accounts I use LastPass. its free and it stores all of your passwords.  I just log into it once a day with a 30+ password and it automatically logs me into all on line accounts, intuit, credit cards, bank accounts etc.

Beneficiaries get the step up so you have to provide the basis to them, real estate, stock, etc.

Hey Hey I am in shape..........  round is a shape and a perfectly acceptable one at that.

Well the many once a year people that procrastinate are not the ones I care about.  Almost all of our returns have multiple k-1's in them so we are stuck till 9/15 to do them.  For a firm our size we put out about 1800 returns and most of them are multistates,  multiple sch E's and lately a lot of our clients are in tic's to unlike k-1's, we don't even receive the info till now when the tic's accountant works on it.  We bought out a 2 man firm a while back and they do a lot of $300 returns, our core starts at $1000  or they are part of a business client.

We have been trying since august to hire 2 people, a 3-5 year person and a junior.  There is no one out there even sending in resume's.  If we go into tax season this short handed then we will have a revolt from our staff.  Gearing up for the new January deadlines, we added a full time bookkeeper and 2 part timers to get all of our write-ups done by jan 15th.  As for the new March deadlines, no way, every business return is going on extension [especially 1065's with no money due] March 1st.  Then we can get them done as we get them done.  April should now be a snap and we will spread our work load out over may-august for everthing we would have normally done march and april.

These new deadlines are going to make us all drastically change our work flow practices.

we have about 55 still open as of last night and our server crashed.  Our IT guy has been stuck in traffic since around 10:30, an hour trip has not been 4 hours and he says it will be another 1/2 hour to get here then he has to fix it.  None of his remote fixes worked.  I have basically had 6 professional staff, 3 partners, and 3 admins siting around all day till after a late lunch and now they are all going home.

was it available for rent all year and they just couldn't find a tenant?  If so and if they are renting or trying to rent it in 2016 then yes.

On 10/5/2016 at 10:10 PM, SaraEA said:

 

This discussion reminds me of a problem raised in my Master's program.  Many Jewish people give large sums to their synagogues and in return receive preferential seating and other social perks (just like in the BC days).  Students wondered if the full amount of their donations counted for the deduction because they got something in return.  There were a bunch of IRS agents in the course, and they all agreed that never in a million years would they get away with digging into the intent of the donation.  The only thing they were taught to watch for was tuition to religious school disguised as a donation.  Your client has nothing to worry about.

in Judaism, the number 18 [chai] is lucky so many people make contributions in multiples of 18,180,1800 and many will use 18 in the amount, ie 218, 518, etc.

I once had an audit and the agent [not Jewish] didn't want to accept the cancelled checks saying that they must have been for tickets or something run through the temple. [pre 250 letter requirement days].  I asked him how long he has been auditing here on the North Shore of Nassau County and he said 1 week.  I laughed and explained it to him.  Months later he called me to thank him for the education and how all he sees are donation such as I listed above.

I guess not many Jews from where he came from, somewhere down south.  

just make sure none of the items are subject to 30% limitation and you are good to go.  I have clients that give millions over their income [neg income due to real estate depr] and never had an issue.

Catherine's FileinTime looks like it will do the job, $300 first year then $100 renewals and I can import the tax items from my tax software and just have to add the other stuff manually. 

its not really taxes that I need to track, software does that.  its payroll, sales, llc fees, certiori's, financial statements, bank submissions, etc.  And just having a due date on a calendar isn't good enough if I want to track progress, which info is in, which clients owe me more info, who in staff is working on it, etc.

another post 10/15 project to look into

Catherine, this product looks pretty good but the online info is light.   Can you print out reports on a calendar?  I like to see the whole month with holidays and weekends visable?

I HAVE used the rev proc 84-35 in the past even though its for 1065's and was successful.  Did they come out with an official position to no longer accept it?

why would he buy the corp and then assume liablility for prior work?  he should buy the client list, assets and name.  The standing S corp, changes its name and registers the old name as a dba that he sells to the new guy.  Or old and new form a partnership with both names. Once the seller is paid off then the buyer changes name dropping sellers [or keeps it if he wants]  We have bought many practices but would never buy a corp and have the preparer penalties hang over our head.

I am an S corp for the past 27 years

unrelated, but what services did they do?  at least here in NY they are too young to do such work, no machinery can be used. Need working papers which you can get at 14 for many jobs but nothing with machinery.

What if the back pay was for a year out of the statute and the withholding created a refund.  He wouldn't get it by amending.  I think it should go all in the year received.

22 hours ago, Abby Normal said:

The rent should zero out (Sch C rent expense = Sch E rent income). So the total income on the 1040 is the same (assuming no loss suspension on E).

If Sch E has close to a zero profit/loss, then SE tax won't change by much moving the Sch E expenses to Sch C.

If Sch E shows a loss, moving expenses to C will reduce SE tax, and vice versa.

You aren't considering Depreciation, on E this doesn't affect SE tax but on C it would.

22 hours ago, RitaB said:

Yes, if it were an allowed rental (it's not), it is active participation.   Looks like another example of incorrect tax return preparation by one of your competitors.  Be sure and milk it.

On taking the losses, even if she had a legit rental (not self) all the losses would be suspended at $150,000 MAGI, right?  Is she there? 

 

It isn't a passive activity so the losses would not be limited but you can't use the income to free up other passive losses.  We have had a few audits on this.  Self rental to your own business is NOT a passive activity.  Even if the property was in a partnership with spouse. It is a nonpassive activity.

First thing to note is self rental, whether like this or through an entity is NOT considered a passive activity.  Assuming the rent paid covers the expenses then by not claiming the depreciation on C the taxpayer is paying higher se tax.

Quote

 

yep and you can give print outs to support your items.  Most agents will accept this and move on.  I would never give up the electronic file on a basic request.  It can get subpoena'd but how many agents would go through this for a small business as long as you support your records in other ways.   Also it depend if you or your client did the write-up. 

also, its expected to be replaced within 10 years

do this all the time,   line 21 in and out.

DON'T give a copy of quickbooks.  give a printout of the g/l tb etc.

if the trust is ending then I believe the final year its always considered a simple trust and all income will flow to the bene's.