Robbie

Last year, as I am approaching complete retirement, I "retired" my extension clients. Same story, they waited until October to get their papers to me despite me contacting them and advising them that I needed to be finished by Sept 20 as my daughter was visiting for the first time since Covid changed everybody's lives. My daughter arrived and I was still processing returns on the last filing date. This year I noticed some of my "timely" filers were much later than usual. There was illness to blame for some of that, but I do believe that the community is still suffering effects from the last three years of living with covid. They just seem to be functioning differently. That said, reducing my work load so that I am finished by April 18th is great. I have a couple of returns that need a K1, but no voluntary procrastinators.

I print a pdf of the letter and the tax return for my files after I have created an efile and use that to print or email to the client. So that isn't a problem. The problem is after doing that and closing the file, the next time the file is opened on ATX the federal and state estimates are different from what I transmitted. I've never had the file change before after creating an efile without the original efile being flagged red. Weird. The first time it happened I was afraid that the incorrect numbers were transmitted to the IRS but I am told that didn't happen. Nevertheless, I will monitor those clients and confirm that the direct debits for the due dates are accurate. It was a lot of fun to lose an hour or two of uncompensated time.

On the last two tax returns that I have efiled, the client letter changes the direct debit amounts for each of the quarterly payments to a wrong number after transmitting the efile to ATX. I just spoke with a representative at ATX who, after half an hour, told me that it is a problem with ATX and they are working on it. I was told the efile transmittal to the IRS used the correct numbers, not the incorrect numbers appearing in the client letter after I have filed.

I am in California and semi retired this tax season. This year I eliminated my out of state tax returns and eliminated the procrastinators who wait until October as well as the clients that I just didn't want to interact with any more (high maintenance). Last year was difficult for me, so reducing the work load to a very manageable schedule is working out well. I am four years in remission from my cancer, but that nasty beast will come back in the future. Now my client base has been cut in half it will be easier in the future to close up plus I don't have the stress of getting the "I don't know...let me explain!" answer to a simple yes or no question. Simplifying one's life has a lot going for it!

Check the Ca 540 NR instructions for "Do I Have to File". It could be that your CA source income is below the threshold for filing. Ca source income would be income only from your Ca residents. https://www.ftb.ca.gov/forms/2021/2021-540nr-booklet.html

First time abatement penalty can be used again after four years. Alternative is reasonable cause for a penalty abatement. However I requested the FTA and includes a reasonable cause abatement request due to illness for a penalty on a 2019 return. Both were denied for no clearly stated reason and I have filed an appeal. Covid shut down has prevented any action other than denials of the request for abatement. So every 90 days or so we get a letter saying they need more time to process the appeal. It's ridiculous. The FTA is statutory and shouldn't be discretionary on the part of the agent, but they can't seem to get that fact through their thick heads.

Thanks, Abby. Pretty much lean and mean, and frequent reboots, but it hasn't crashed for several days (cross my fingers) since I changed the allocation of resources. Thanks for the information.

Ok: I haven't had to use LAA. I figured out yesterday that my computer wasn't configured correctly, so a few changes to optimize my memory usage seems to have done the trick. Ah, slow learner.....

Thanks, if the problem persists, I'll give it a go

Well I have this problem. Go to print and ATX 2022 disappears. Used chat Wednesday for the response to open taskmaster and close ATX 2022 down, which works, so now I know to do that to get ATX 2022 to load back up. (spent about 3 hours yesterday trying to fix this) - wasted time. So now to really fix this, I should go to large address aware website and load a program that I know nothing about, and do some configuration, so it will fix my ATX 2022. Sorry, I am old and confused. I retired half my clients this year so I could breeze through my tax season. That's not happening. Robbie

same problem. I've got one out there for almost 24 hours and all processed this morning are still showing as transmitted, so you are not alone. The returns filed two days ago took a day to get processed, so it started this week on Wednesday Robbie

My thanks to the responses to my original post. I believe I had arrived at DANRVAN's position myself. In a further discussion with the client trying to tie down the date it originally became available for rent, and after hemming and hawing on the client's part, particularly as to how much personal time he was going to spend it the house during 2022, I have advised him that it is a rental property and not a second home subject to the vacation home rental rules. Thanks for everybody's input!

What I was wrestling with is the 15 day rule which states the rental income is not reported as income if the dwelling was rented for less than 15 days during the tax year IRC 280A(g). For 2021, the rental usage is zero. For 2022, the usage will be 61 days. I know prepaid rent is taxable for a property which is in fact a rental property, so that wasn't the question. To not report the income at all obviously isn't correct, but to report the income in full in 2021 and not be able to deduct a portion of the property taxes during the rental usage seems unfair. Particularly as there is no benefit on Schedule A to the client for additional state taxes. It seems more logical to interpret the 15 day rule in this situation as allowing the rental income to be matched with the period of usage.

Client received rent for January and February on his second residence at the end of December. So, it is prepaid rent and taxable in 2021. There was no rental use of the vacation home during 2021. So used zero days for rental - so this isn't taxable in 2021 under the vacation home rules?

Thanks, Tom. I was exhausted at the end of tax season and entirely missed that change. Thanks for advising me. I do appreciate it.