Medlin Software, Dennis

SS planning should be done starting from an early age. Meaning, get in 10 quarters. Check for accurate reporting. If an s corp, for example, maximize SS wages instead of playing RC games. JMO though. My opponent noon is based not on maximizing for own self, but to setup for the unexpected. Surviving spouse, surviving kids. Disabled self, spouse, kids. Etc. 

Comes from my grandmother collecting for over 50 years. Me being a surviving child. Daughter likely collecting 40+ years of ssdi based on my wages. Also still personally having one zero year dragging my calculations down due to a poor choice in my youth.

i don’t see it as a need to beat private investment game, but a way to care for those we are responsible for. The average person is not going to beat SS if something unexpected happens. I don’t else a scenario where SS is left fallow. 

I know not all agree, and I know many who wish they had!

There is not always a good answer.  Situations may be different.  For example, someday, our daughter will need to transition from SSI to SSDI, based on my earnings.  This change is not always automatic, and must be initiated.  If one does understand this can be done, and why, one may make less than optimal decisions before then, such as claiming before FRA.

It is not just a school issue.  Many people fail to PRINT AND RETAIN the proper records, personal, business, or professional. If I had a dime for every person who asks me if I have paper records of their data... Or my computer failed, do you have my data...

I suspect at least one person here does not have all required paper records (PDF is common), but does not follow the rest of the "I don't keep paper" requirements.  Same for the often shared idea of not keeping any records once there is no legal reason to (no items from 10 years ago for example).

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I gave up beating the drum on the rules allowing non paper record keeping.  I guess folks are fine with the one item which nags at me, essentially giving warrant-less search rights to anything connected with your e data storage.  The rules were set in the 90's (or earlier), and have not been updated (why should the IRS want to give up rights?).  The second item is having to proactively report ANY possible data issues, which can be something like changing computers or a power issue.

If the IRS has updated the rules, I will be glad, but no one has shown me anything less onerous being allowed, and I stopped looking/monitoring.

Did the employer provide the erroneous withheld amounts to the spouse and a proper 1099?

Maybe the process to report an incorrect or missing W2 along with properly including the amount as if on a proper 1099?

And account for, try to get any incorrectly withheld items.

Some employers make mistakes with this process from lack of use/knowledge. 

My jaded take is anyone who did not claim the ERC in real time should not be handling their own payroll and/or accounting.  If it is a corp, those in charge did not meet their fiduciary responsibilities to the corp.  Same with the PPP.

Just as many who own/manage a business forget to treat themselves as an employee, they often forget their ultimate duty is to their corp - first.

Edit, escapees focus is on ss and retirement fund taxation, and NY is the state I reference when referring to a one millisecond nexus. 

For a good insight, refer to escapees rv org docs. It is a huge issue for mobile rv folks, full and part time. Their focus is on taxation, vehicle fees, and medical insurance, but it leads to good knowledge which helps with taxation issues.

For us, more than anything, we want to keep the hmo (then their advantage plan) we have had for life, so we need to meet their eligibility requirements. Hopefully the person referenced in the op has checked into their medical coverage!

one thing for sure, when we travel, I make darn sure not to trigger nexus in another state. Some allow 30 days, some, like by, are simply do not work at all, not even an email, within their border. I’m not just personal liability, but same inattentiveness could trigger company liability (even in a no withholding tax state).

No one answer.  Each tax agency can have their own nexus rules.  (Nexus is the proper term, to me, not residency or domicile.)  Some have one second nexus, some allow 30 days, etc.  Some even have a no physical pretense nexus!  (Company not in CA, has a web site also not served from CA.  Customer in CA clicks an "email us" link on said web site, business just created CA nexus!)

Once you determine nexus, you can then figure out the proper report, whether the tax agency calls it resident, NR, or whatever.

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OP.

WI resident "legally" (likely applies to WI purposes, other states do not have to honor what WI says). Likely contradicts what TX may have to say about someone present for more than half a year (or whatever TX uses as a time trigger).  DOMICILE could remain in WI, since that word ties in to where the person claims home, keeps their stuff, has their bank accounts, and plans to return to, but tax residency/nexus/residency can be different than domicile.

The last time I looked, Intuit has a public facing import, but it has a fee. (A pay us for not using our payroll software fee?) This may have been an alternative income stream when they failed to get banks to accept their file format and usage fee as the defacto standard.  There was a third party who attempted a work around, but they got blocked often and have to provide constant updates. No idea if they still exist. 

Much easier and cheaper to manually play monthly or quarterly payroll totals (into your accounting software). The details are in your payroll records already. 

States have it "easy".  They can claim you are a resident, and it is up to the TP to prove otherwise.  CA and NY are the examples of the toughest bullies.  I am sure other states have claimed aboard the "tax everyone" post-Wayfair (SCOTUS) train.  Folks who legitimately want to move domicile, such as those who live full time in an RV and want to choose best for them domicile, hire experts to help.  The basic advice is "leave no trace" in your former domicile.  They talk about things like bank accounts, DL, doctors you see, etc.

Another example is online sellers can now be taxed based on the location of their web site host's machines, where their customers are located, etc.  Not jsut sales tax, but income tax.  Someone in CA clicking an email link on a site (say in NY) for a business in a third state?  The business may be liable for sales and income tax in all THREE states (plus localities)!  No more Quill protection, Wayfair ruling has opened a real can of worms.

53 minutes ago, cbslee said:

It has nothing to do with this. It's all about our elected representatives getting re elected.

Many things are at the end of the follow the money rainbow. Did not want to get a no politics message though.

Ease would mean less budget/employees at the tax agencies, so it will never happen. 

I use a firewall for our internet connection.  Interestingly, for one phone, I will not say whose, I have to add exceptions because some of the things which get used on said phone are in Singapore, China, and a few sketchy US server farms.  The Singapore and China IP addresses are for a game someone p[lays, and if I block those localities, the game hangs when it offers to show ads for rewards.  The sketchy server farm is used for part of the back end of our gym's app.  Not every server farm is 100% bad, so this is not an unusual situation.  Each device is isolated, so it poses no risk for the other devices.

Point is, there is no 100% filter method for calls, SMS, or IP addresses.  For email, I wash personal messages through a gmail account.  Gmail has very good junk filters, and no longer (admits to) reads(ing) the messages.  I used to use mailwasher, which is also good.  For phone, my personal line does not ring or jump unless the caller is in my contacts.  All others have to leave a message.  Very few junk calls, or even junk SMS.  For business, I get probably 30/40 junk calls/SMS per day. It was less when I washed the incoming items through a VOIP system.  Not that I do not use the business voice line for support, I can simply not have it ring or vibrate for any caller (unless in my contacts).

For business, while I filter emails pretty well, since it is business, I still scan the spam messages as once or twice a week a good message gets trapped.  Usually from someone out of the US (vacation).

For payroll taxes, I, for years, have advised (for those that deposit too much for some reason), to always ask for a refund, never a credit.  Credits often get applied to other taxes and cause issues later.

The KEY for CASA is the person is on the infant/child/teenager's side, and only on their side.  They have a "cleaner" influence than the social worker, "parent(s)", and even cleaner than any foster parent.  There is no "book" for getting the best result for the child, so their CASA worker is the one to speak for them and make sure they get all their needs met using whatever resources are available.  Interestingly, none of our fosters had a CASA worker that I can recall.  Lack of volunteers was the issue.  In the case of our first adopted, we petitioned the court to be declared de-facto parents, and became precedent setting our naive selves.  Somehow, the universe paired us up with an attorney who was looking for such a case!

One minute in the foster system can (state dependent) open up a lifetime of access to benefits for the child.  The child needs to learn these things too, as it may be up to only them some day.

While we are no longer active foster parents (we do emergency respite only), we do participate by helping foster families, adoptive families, and families with special needs children/adult children navigate the "system".

I have/had an avocation which was much needed, and in my case, I was not only an active participant, I was teaching others.  Unfortunately my participation was reflected to family in a negative way, and cost us some good friends, so after a couple of decades, I grew tired of burdening my family.  This was after switching to out of town work only, which helped, but a physical confrontation (even though I wore a hidden audio recorder) was the last straw.

So when I read about complaints about the poor quality or lack of people at all (no matter the quality) performing such a service, it is a sow/reap situation.

"To take one difficult area of tax law and apply that to the whole agency is an exaggeration"

To me, this has nothing to do with the IRS or any other agency.  It is another sign of the moral decay of our society - period.  "Do the right thing" used to not be noticeable, because it was a matter of constant action, the expected action if you will.  Now when someone "does the right thing" it is unique enough it becomes the closing bit on the evening news.  Worse yet, the "right thing" often gets you chastised privately and publicly, so less and less will do the right thing when it can be seen, such as some/many? in politics, or even being a volunteer in a local service group (what, you are a member of X?  So is a real red/blue person, so you musty be red/blue too).

For those who have a desire to help, one place which usually does not bite politically is foster care / CASA.  The bite is you do have to become a little more self aware about town as you may run into a "parent" who believes you helped take their child from them, but in most cases, those folks don't bother seeking revenge.

2 hours ago, cbslee said:

The key question is, "When do you cross the line from the proper recording of client transactions to making decisions which should be made by your client?"

Perfect point. Rereading the OP, sounds like more than a preparer relationship is being expected.

1 hour ago, mcb39 said:

I could probably write a book on this subject, but I won't.  Mine is a 50 year old Partnership wherein one partner often funds purchases when cash is low.  I never add it to his Capital Account; but I carefully document his Cash In and Cash out when the particular item of stock is sold.  The profit stays with the Partnership.  The only time I show it as an outstanding loan is if there is one that has not been repaid at the end of the year.  I have done their bookkeeping and tax returns since 1972 and the IRS has never questioned a thing.  You might call this creative accounting; but it works and the simpler you keep things, the better.  I will add that this is a family owned Partnership which could (might) make a difference.  I can only stress the importance of documentation and this poor fellow doesn't seem to have that to fall back on.

Family deals are the ones to worry about the most - to me. Lack of usual practices seem to always come back for a big bite at some point. I guess I have seen the demise of too many family entities because of lack of planning and documentation.  The old "if it is not written, it does not exist" line has a purpose.

What if the partner acting as the bank passes and the remaining partners and heirs differ on the existence of any loan balance?

Salaried employees (same pay for no minutes a week or all of them) are not part of this "temporary" rule.

Nothing being distributed, which could be true if they are loaning money to the corp every year with no payoff>  Could be true the business has yet to make money and the owners keep funding the loss.  Could be a need to look for some sort "other" distribution, such as personal expenses or things which should have been personal expenses.

Just the feelings from an old jaded hand... who has seen similar (and nuttier) before.

Shark Tank has taught all who watch that investors want to (usually)have the business acquired within a 5- 7 year period, so they can get theirs and move on.

What one sees with big likely profitable family run entities (like Drake probably was, Adam Drake, unless the family wants to keep going, without cashing out, when there are no family members willing or able to buy out others, the entity gets sold.  A great example is the recent sale of Tiffin Motorhomes.  Tiffin was actually PERFECTLY timed as they got theirs right before the start of the during/after COVID lull in MH sales.

Those who receive comp time get you know what-ed.

"Relating to gross income; to amend Section 40-18-14, Code of Alabama 1975; to exclude hours worked above 40 in any given week from gross income."

This means any tax within AL, or anything else which uses AL "gross income" (as opposed to something like "remuneration") will be affected... and likely means the W2 will show less AL wages, with the exempted wages in box 14.

If I could wave a wand and go back 40 years, I would be charging a flat rate for my payroll software, and a separate fee by state, for the states with WH.  (See the thread on the upcoming AL change.  I will likely be spending many hours on a small percentage of customers this fall.)

I may actually implement something along this in a few years, keeping the fee the same for the no hassle (no state WH states) and only the next increase for the rest of the states.  Have to balance it though, as more prices means more complication, and zero chance of automated orders, so never mind .