Sara EA

A restaurant burned down and the plight of the workers came to light. Some had worked there for decades and could retire. Since they were paid partially or completely off the books, they were shocked that they were entitled to little or no Social Security benefits. Others paid the same way were eligible for little or no unemployment. Years ago SSA sent statements to workers a few months before their birthdays each year projecting their benefits if their inflation-adjusted incomes remained the same. Amazing how many of our small business owners making $10 or $20k a year found religion when they saw in black in white that their SS would amount to peanuts.

This is the most terrifying hack of all. Not only do the hackers have all your personal data, they have your physical description. Unless you are 4'5" or 6'6", it won't be too hard to find someone who looks like you and can cash those checks. Make sure that you have a credit freeze and not a credit alert (which the companies recommend because it still allows them to sell your credit scores).

I lived most of my life in New England, and I still would never accept being grouped with the guys--those creatures who find bathroom humor funny and gorge themselves in pie-eating contests. I've been a Southerner for less than four years and have taken to y'all as an inclusive, respectful, grammatically acceptable term. I went to undergraduate school in Boston and if I wasn't careful I could have come home with a Brooklyn accent. Half of my dorm was from Neu Yok.

I have always resented that term. Living in an all-male household, I definitely do not want to be grouped with those who eat over the sink and consider armpit noises hysterical. I chose my pronouns long before it was the thing to do.

In the old days, before MACRS and possibly before ACRS, accountants could come up with any length of time they thought a piece of property would last, guess its scrap value, and depreciate based on that calculation. These liberties ended with the adoption of the formal depreciation systems, yet over the course of my career I have encountered several older accountants who haven't kept up with their CPEs and continue to invent their own depreciation rules.

"All y'all is used in the Southern United States when a speaker wishes to include everyone being addressed. Y'all may refer to an indefinite set of members of a group, but all y'all definitively includes everyone in the group." https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/all_y'all Having fairly recently moved to the South, I hear y'all all the time. I thought it was cute until I read a linguist's take on the term and now I think it's wonderful and am trying to adopt it into my lexicon. She explained that it's nothing more than a contraction for "you all," is gender neutral, is respectful to young and old alike, and is friendly and inclusive. While many (including some Southerners) view the term as boorish, it sure beats the New England "youse." A guy I know who grew up in CT and moved to WV now says "all" instead of "oil." If you've been to Boston, you will be amazed how they have removed the "r" was every word and still manage to communicate (Pak your ca in Havad Yad). John Kennedy took language lessons to try to enunciate the r sound, with limited success.

When Roths were first introduced, the law contained an enticement to convert from an IRA: Convert all at once and spread the tax bill over four years. I did that with mine, and two years later the tax rate went up so I ended up paying more than I bargained for. Now the rate is even lower than it was back then. On the positive side, the IRA didn't have that much money in it so while the tax percentage was higher than it is now, actual tax dollars paid weren't that great. So yes, it's a crapshoot to decide whether to convert or not. Who knew they would change the rules for inherited Roths? Who knows what tax rates will be in the future or what other rules will change? The fact that RMDs are not required is a big benefit for those who may not need the money, but that's the case today and it too may change. Still, I have no regrets about converting mine. It's nice to know it's there and I can withdraw from it if I choose but never have to withdraw (for now).

Don't be afraid of 3115! Changes in depreciation are automatically granted, so you only have to fill out parts I and II (basically identifying info and reason) and Sch E, where you compute the missed depreciation.

AI knows what it knows because it has "learned" from everything out there in the vast internet. The problem is that a lot of what is out there is wrong. You could probably ask it to prove that the world is flat and it will recall all those ancient texts that said it was. It's always fun when you type a text and it tries to create the word before you type it--some hilarious guesses come up. I do think AI could create a perfect tax return. It could "learn" the entire US Code Title 26 and all the regulations, court cases, and rulings. As our tax system has gotten more complex, we tax pros have often lamented that there is no way one person could know it all. Now some of us will not prepare returns that have foreign income, crypto transactions, etc. or tackle estates, trusts, and worst of all partnerships, because we do not think we have the knowledge to be accurate. Eventually AI could handle it. Tax pros will join the ranks of milkmen, lamplighters, keypunch and telephone operators in the Museum of Extinct Professions.

You don't cite where your article came from, but it almost sounds like advertising for BDO. US federal law requires accountants to get client consent to offshore tax prep. Few have consented, understandably so. The tax prep industry has been greying for some time. Just look around you at an EA meeting. I suspect the same for the accounting side but don't know for sure. Why? I'll offer two of what I suspect are a million reasons. One is that CPAs have gotten bad raps from highly publicized failures to catch fraud/trouble when they should have, starting with Enron and Anderson and extending to errors uncovered within the Trump organization and recent crypto and bank collapses. Another reason is that young people today are being pushed into STEM studies, although I suspect that for many that isn't a good fit. Anyone have more ideas to offer?

I think the 5-year comment was meant to apply to concession stands. Being on a slab foundation has nothing to do with the structure's permanency. A lot of homes are built on slabs with no basement. The key is whether the structure is permanent or can it be moved around. If permanent = 39 years. (Well, I do have a client who moves houses, e.g., to higher ground after a hurricane, but that's an ordeal because houses aren't meant to be moved.)

The instructions to 1040x do state to attach all forms and schedules that you are amending. So, for example, state: Line X: Sch SE added. Attached. Line Y: Consolidated 1099 received after original return filed. Sch D and Form 8949 attached. Line Z: Sch EIC changed. Attached. In the scenario where EIC was claimed on the original but the client is no longer eligible on the amendment, file the EIC with zeroes. Some state returns require the line number that changed as well as associated revised schedules.

I was taught to write explanations line by line for those that changed, although this no longer appears in the instructions. This would certainly abbreviate your text. For example: Lines a, b, c : Corrected Form NEC received. Line d: Form 1099-MISC added. Line ?: SE tax changed as result of above. No need to tell them how much the refund is, as that's in the 1040X.

I have a client who has been a miner for years, long before it was the in thing. He just put in a solar farm to help power it. In all these years, he has never earned enough crypto through mining to cover his gigantic electric bill. It may take lifetimes to cover the cost of the farm. I suppose if the price of the crypto he earned has gone up a whole lot in value these costs may be covered.

Um, Pacun, you do realize that in two years you could have zero. If you buy the rentals now, in two years they may be valued more, maybe less, but you'll still have something. And you also must realize that although your initial post said to corp would be "investing in the stock market," crypto is not stock.

Do you mistakenly have the property marked as Sect 1245? UT defaults to that. and you have to change it to Sect 1231.

If the client used MACRS, there isn't depreciation recapture on the real estate portion. Instead, basis is reduced by the depreciation allowed or allowable, increasing the cap gain. Gain is calculated on 4797, not the Sch D worksheet, and transferred to Sch D. If they used ACRS, different story.

Pretty clever to leave out bottles as "suggestions." When I worked in the office, clients often brought doughnuts and candy. I've never cared for sweets, but everybody else in the office enjoyed them. Once I got an Edible Arrangement. Now that I enjoyed. A couple of times a season clients would send in lunch for everyone, which was much appreciated. Fancy booze and wines came in too, but seemed to disappear. Go figure.

As long as the return is submitted by midnight April 18, the debit payment is considered timely. On the last day it sometimes takes a while to get acknowledgements, but as long as it was submitted it's still timely. For those last-minute filings with instructions to debit on the 18th, it may take a day or two for the debit to occur, but still considered timely because the instructions were there--same as if you mailed the return and it was postmarked on time but received later. I still have a stack of returns to do, and a bunch with missing info. I'll get some of those out tomorrow and spend the rest of the day figuring out how much the others have to pay with their extensions. Instead of having people on extension pay 1st quarter estimates, I'm adding the first quarter to the extension payment so the excess will be applied and cover the estimate. Sunday will probably be file extensions day. Tuesday will be SLEEP and EAT day.

Turtle poop? Why no cow flop?

There are no current amnesty programs that I know of. I had a client who requested amnesty when it existed, and IRS requested six years of returns. They did look at them and asked me lots of follow-up questions, so be careful. Well, they asked the attorney, who asked me. It was the one time in my career I was a Kovel accountant.

I have just called it a day and am drinking a nice cold beer. (Could be classified as any of the above.) Soon I will get ready for bed and have a hot cup of tea and see if I can get through ten pages of a book. How I miss reading good fiction, although some of my clients' tax docs might fall under that category.

I think CA is the most complicated. I was taken aback to realize they still allow misc 2% deductions that are long gone from the federal so you don't think to enter them. With MA you have to be careful that state AGI is correct. In UltraTax, it populates from Box 1, but that's not the number MA uses.

Quite a few are posting that they know they don't charge enough. Don't give your work away. If you have spent time on education, spend time on a return and with the client, charge for it. If it takes work and multiple calls and emails to get needed forms or info from a client, charge for it. If a client contacts you often throughout the year with this or that question, don't forget that either when you decide on your fee. I work at a firm and am paid regardless of what the client is charged, so I'm not making more or less money based on my billing. I just try to charge what my work is worth. We all have clients in trying circumstances and don't raise their fees sometimes for years. We probably have a client or two whom we don't charge at all some years. Then there are those who consume our time. Like one I had who asked one month about the tax consequences of selling a commercial rental. Lots of work on that question, calculating depreciation etc. Next month he asked about selling a different rental. After that it was about maybe gifting one or the other or both to a relative. Yes, his tax prep fee that year went way up. On the other hand, a client contacts me every month or two all year with this or that issue. I charge him $1500 for his individual return and don't increase his fee because I feel I'm already being compensated for the extra work. I don't usually charge for help with W4s or questions about potential 401k or IRA distributions either. I'd rather folks ask before the damage is done.

I'd charge about $500, allotting maybe $100 to the Sch C as a professional fee deduction next year. The owner of our firm said that all new clients start at $325 this year, and so far no one has balked (although we rarely take new clients so there weren't that many to complain). jkl, HRB had to have a birthdate or wouldn't be able to efile. HRB charges a lot for HOH filing status and refundable credits, if she had any of those, or maybe she got a refund advance?