Abby Normal

We almost always take mileage the first year to keep our options open. This requires you to use SL in any years of actual. One thing really nice that ATX does is calculate the depreciation component of standard mileage. So at disposition, you have the correct depreciation, even if you used actual some years and mileage in other years. Mileage doesn't decrease when the vehicle is fully depreciated, so on a cheaper vehicle that you keep a long time, you can get something for nothing.

Tell them it's not reasonable and send them this link: https://satruck.org/Home/DonationValueGuide They can use the high column if they feel it's appropriate. I had to do the same thing last year, and my guys have been doing this for years, before they came to me. I told them I was trying to protect them from being audited. But at least they gave me an itemized list. I did a spreadsheet and came up with a % to reduce their numbers by. It doesn't matter that it was expensive to begin with. Thrift store value is market price.

AMT is essentially dead (for now). I have not had a client hit AMT since 2017. Not sure what caused the difference, unless it was depreciation.

You mean an engagement letter?

Having the final paystub every year is always a good idea. I'll have to add it to my organizer questions.

I thought you had to do calculations for life estate based on parent's age at time the life estate is established, and you end up with part carryover basis and part stepped up basis. Each year the kids own a larger % of the home. No? Carry on.

I've seen some "full" fireproof safes.

The banker should not have been lazy and just filled out the form. It looks more suspicious to deposit less than 10k repeatedly than to just deposit what you actually made.

This is why we scan all the documents as soon as they are received. If they're ever lost, we still have them electronically, but we've never lost any that I know of. We put them in a clear plastic expanding folders with a sticky note with the client's name and log #. Then match the records up with the return when assembled. But I love my out of state clients that are totally paperless, both ways.

It works.

It's hard to feel bad for a child who is given a house, but they will have a heck of time coming up with dad's basis when they sell the house. It's best to file the gift tax return because we don't know what the estate tax laws will be when he dies, but gift tax returns can be done after he dies, if needed and there's no penalty. Papers? What papers? I don't recall any papers.

I used to file my MD residents with one spouse working in DE as separate for DE, until I realized that it only changed the allocation of state taxes between MD & DE. The total state tax paid remained the same, because MD was giving full credit for all taxes paid to DE. Life is easier now because no software I ever used would handle a separate return for only one of the taxpayers on a joint federal return.

I've never done a MFS, except for those occasional couples who keep everything separate, usually very rich, so I don't need a program to split it. Besides, I could split most returns in less than 20 minutes, and, as long as I'm getting paid for that, I'm good.

MD gives lower income people free special septic equipment if they live in an environmentally sensitive area. I was asked today if that would be considered income. I told them, probably, but call MD to see if they're sending a 1099. Valued around 10k.

Judy is one of our best Tax Heroes!

Try a different PDF printer, perhaps ATX PDF. I've had the conversion from PDF to excel work, but my conversions don't always work perfectly either.

Pro tip: Delete the 1099G for tax refunds and just enter the refund on the worksheet, if it's even taxable. We haven't had one taxable yet this year, due to SALT limits or just not itemizing last year.

You mean the one who failed spectacularly?

I have a key to open my office door. I have a code to disable the alarm system. I have a windows password. I have encryption on all of my drives. I have an ATX password. But, somehow, the IRS thinks I now need 2FA to keep my tax software "safe"? If I was trying to steal a tax preparer's data, I would search for all the PDFs on their computer that are most likely not password protected and just copy those. Why would I want to log in to their tax software? This is like airport security, where taking your shoes off supposed to make you safer, but it's complete .

A lot of software is online these days. No way does ATX want to text me a code every time I enter my password to log in. Besides, the IRS is way behind the times, as usual. 2FA has already been spoofed so a hacker can intercept these texts.

I think they're referring to websites and portals, not our desktop software.

Beats me. This is all new this year. Maybe update forms?

It was all automatic on the one I did. Once I found out the QBI box I needed to check was on the Sch C. I only had SE tax and SEHI deduction, plus wages and it all filled in.

I emailed the MD governor this morning asking him to push for this and also to raise the MD standard deduction and tax brackets to what they would be if they had been indexed for inflation, then start indexing everything in the tax law for inflation.

When we do DE returns, we just fax them the federal Sch A. Is that what you do? DE is so backwards in some ways.