mcbreck

Yes, why not just order them for free from the IRS? I order in June and have no problem getting them. I don't need the forms but clients sometimes want them and I have them on hand.

A Revocable Grantor Trust can get an EIN. It's not required but they can get one and voluntarily choose to file separately. I have several clients who have chosen this route.

Since they were delinquent and needed an OIC, what are the odds they spend the money if they deposit the check? I've had several clients receive checks with no explanation and we had no clue why. The IRS (or state) then asked for it (or more) back months later with no further explanation. Thankfully all were well off enough for it to not matter but these things are a nightmare scenario for most families.

It's wonderful you can retire with this market. Know this couple who retired at 55 and moved to Europe. They flew over on Jan 2nd & the peak of the market was Jan 5th. Glad they aren't my clients anymore. They are high return seekers who were big into tech so I'm guessing they are down 35-40% at this point.

On a different note: if you don't have a current occupancy permit, you aren't a landlord. Had a client years ago who kept arguing with me that he was a landlord and should be able to take deductions on his properties. Finally when I asked if he could legally rent out the property to someone to reside in it he started to see his problem. It isn't an always catchall but it helps some people see the situation a little differently. Commercial / industrial property has a different renting timeline than residential in today's world. It's common to see commercial units be vacant since Spring of 2020 and still not see a lot of activity.

Ouch that's horrific. When I started working my dad lectured me that if you ever go into a partnership with someone, demand all partners must share equally in ALL corporate benefits. He had a friend who became partner with a group of guys where one guy was 50%, the rest all added up to 50%. Every December the major partner gave himself a major bonus that cut distributive profits to almost nothing. There was nothing the other partners could do about it but quit.

The cloud has advantages, love the idea of it but my experience in practice is that it's far slower than a desktop version. Be sure and test it. I take my laptop and do taxes at people's homes, offices and farms and cloud makes that far less reliable. A company I work with just rolled out a new tech platform. It literally is 15-20 seconds to load each page. If you want to edit a page with new client data, 10-15 seconds for it to unlock that section for you to start entering and there could be 2-3 sections in one page. Mind boggling that a company thinks that is acceptable.

I'm not a bookkeeper and don't do that stuff - how much do you bill just doing a very limited number of tax returns? About 6 years ago my sister in law was looking into doing bookkeeping and we determined it was 10 hours of bookkeeping to do a rather basic tax return.

Spoke with an attorney in a similar situation about 2 weeks ago and his client received her refund 3 years after the amended return was filed. Good luck.

I downloaded via torrent Quickbooks 16 and have it installed on multiple computers. I use Medlin for his payroll and just manually enter into QB. Just like with the others having problems with older QB versions not installing, my 2012 didn't when I upgraded computers.

If there are no assets in the trust at the time of death, there is no need to file a return as there is no taxable income. There would be no need to get an EIN. Many people generate trusts and never title assets under it so it's a complete non-factor. It is possible that the trust was funded via beneficiary forms (ira).

Every time I've done an all-day tax seminar - right after lunch I always declare to never do it again. Everyone in the room is half asleep so what good is it?

On the student loan forgiveness - does anyone have a firm definition of what they mean by income? Client claimed the student as a dependent so it's based on the parent's income (that I understand). Could we file an amended return to kick her off? Is a government pension income included? My client has a $65k pension and $65k job - over the limit? Or is it taxable income which would lower her again below? Since it's a presidential order I'm guessing those haven't been firmly determined? This one is extra weird as her parents are recently divorced and the father is 100% disabled with no income. The mom helps pay his medical bills so they are NOT wealthy people. The timing of their divorce might have royally screwed them on this as it was finalized in Dec 2021.

I've yet to see anywhere that this isn't still the case.

I've never figured out when a rehabber / flipper qualifies for capital gains versus ordinary income taxation. In this scenario I think A gets capital gains and B gets ordinary income treatment. A isn't a builder but an investor IMO. I have a guy who buys pieces of equipment (tractors / bull dozers / skid steer loaders), rehabs them and sells them for a profit. He claims capital gains on the items. He uses the funds to pay for his wife's graduate school tuition.

Why do you think it's a scam? They've been in business for a while.

Whether there is a fiduciary duty to distribute the income isn't my responsibility. The point is that I don't have a liability and don't need to verify that the administrator distributed the income in a timely manner on a simple trust to claim the DNI deduction.

I've been doing some reading and this pdf came up: http://daviswillms.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/ten_things_davis_willms_2018_updated.28475652.pdf Here is the IRS code he links to that I'm getting at 652(a) so you don't actually have a click on it: Subject to subsection (b), the amount of income for the taxable year required to be distributed currently by a trust described in section 651 shall be included in the gross income of the beneficiaries to whom the income is required to be distributed, whether distributed or not. There was a discussion last year that you can only deduct on the 1041 the income actually distributed and that is completely false. Per this attorney on a Simple Trust the 65 days to pay it out isn't applicable as they do not actually have had to pay it out to take the distribution deduction. The 65 day rule only applies to Complex Trusts and Estates. I just found this interesting as I've had attorney's and CPAs argue this isn't true. Several years ago I had an attorney freak out that I was taking a deduction on money he hadn't actually distributed.

I've been fingerprinted multiple times and maybe I'm wrong but I thought you needed it submitted to do the EA background check which is performed AFTER you pass the test. I did the EA 17 years ago so maybe they no longer do that or with my memory maybe they never did. I've had to submit fingerprinting for the securities regulators multiple times so maybe that's what I'm remembering.

PIA isn't new - it's been around for years as I'm a subscriber. I did a $79 for 3 years deal last time. I use a VPN because my client who works at the FBI, my nephew who works at Apple in Cupertino and a firm I work with said to do it. Plus my wife is required to use a VPN 100% of the time for work at a major University. It slows my speed down from about 200mb to 170mb but upload drops to 20mb. Neither of those impact my life at all. The primary problem is that RingCentral won't let you log into your administration accounts via the VPN. I can still run all my phone calls through them while on the VPN. I've used Drake, TaxWise and ATX on the VPN and never had a problem. My client who works for the FBI said you should assume anything that is "encypted" has been hacked. While I use encryption for PDF files, he doesn't allow me to do that with his files. My nephew at Apple smiled when I told him this and said it was a rather safe assumption to make. His opinion was encryption is safer than unencrypted but it's still not safe. I've had multiple people tell me the document services that CPAs love to use aren't really much safer than just emailing the documents. Basically if someone is smart enough to get your emails, they are smart enough to figure out how to get around the encryption.

I'd imagine it would also apply for anyone who is non-licensed and hasn't been fingerprinted previously? CPAs and EAs were fingerprinted to get licensed iirc.

So when a client drops off their data, you individually go in and roll their data over from last year? I'd never considered doing that, I just do them all at once when I've installed the software.

I utilize the client progress feature pretty much any professional software offers. When someone drops off I write their name in a notebook with the date. When they have been notified their return is done and ready for pickup I mark them off. If they pick up and don't pay me, their name goes in the back of the notebook as a reminder. Also, their information is stored in such a way I know where they are within the system. Drop offs that haven't been touched go in 2 different locked drawers in my credenza. Items in current process go in 2 other locked drawers on the other side of my credenza. If I'm done with it or we are waiting on data which I don't expect to arrive very quickly, they go in a locked "safe" in another room. If I'm done and expecting pickup in the next 24 hours, I put them in a bankers box. At the end of each day my desk is completely cleared off. I don't like client data sitting in view of other clients coming in my office. Anything I'm currently working on gets locked in my desk drawer (it's never more than 3 files).

It's art so you can deduct the lesser of the FMV or the cost basis. This is why art generally gets flushed through a few circular sales before being donated. Bam, that basket is worth $100k.