kcjenkins

Father stories are all the rage this winter, and MORE THAN ONE FRUITCAKE is a great holiday tale of extreme cooking gone wrong. MORE THAN ONE FRUITCAKE At-Risk Survivor Personal Account Unconfirmed Reading 'My Father, The PhD; reminded me of my own father, and in particular, one little incident that came to be known in the family as "The Great Fruitcake Incident." I love cooking. Every year I bake a few fruitcakes for family and neighbors. I mix in various alcohols, so people actually EAT my fruitcakes. Now, I've been known to experiment with various types of alcohol. In 2005 I was suffering from a shortage of Jack Daniels whiskey, so I searched the kitchen and settled on a bottle of tequila. After mixing a measure of the Mexican liquor into the batter, I poured it and slid the pan home. Alcohol burns, so when you bake a fruitcake you use a low temperature. Set the oven no higher than 250 degrees so your cakes don't catch on fire--never a good thing, and besides, it's hard to explain why the top of the cake is charred. As I slid the pan in, my father came into the room. He also loved cooking, and he was darn good at it. Poking around, he started making suggestions. I remember seeing him look at my oven, look back at me, and laugh, "You'll never get it done like THAT." He reached over and turned the heat up to 350... Remembering my previous flambe, I sighed and reached toward the stove. I started to say, "Dad, you have to cook it that low, alcohol..." But all I had uttered was, "Dad..." when my hand touched the knob. There was this loud WHOMP! The oven door blew open and a sheet of blue flame shot straight up out of it, burning ALL the hair off my arm--which never grew back! I stood there dazed, the smell of fruitcake and burnt hair filling he air, my dad with a look of utter shock on his face... Before heading to the ER, which he was nice enough to take me to to, I managed to finish my sentence. "Alcohol burns." And YOU try explaining to the ER that your fruitcake exploded...

You not only CAN use the old form, you actually MUST. Read the instructions for the new form, page 1, Purpose of Form, second paragraph, where it says "This revision of Form 5405 can be used to claim the credit only in the following situations."

Tom, since both names are on the 1099, either one should do for avoiding a mis-match issue. I've already had one here, too, and to make it worse, they had two address lines as well. So I just went with the first name, as that was clearly the legal name of the business, and also because if it's a computer matching, I'd think the first name would be the one in the system.

Bill, this thread is about the tax code, not politics. Let's be honest here, politics is always at least part of tax law writing, so it's relevant from time to time to mention the why of a particular section of the code. However, I think we've covered the tax angle on this one, so let's just let this one be closed, and we'll continue on with figuring out all the new angles and trip-wires of the current law.

Pub 17 may not, but the instructions for Sch M do. It says clearly that you must include the SS number "of either you or your spouse". So only need one of them to have the number. Not allowing it unless they both had a SSN was one of the amendments presented by the Republicans that Pelosi did not allow to be voted on.

Sounds like an unusual bunch, all right. Of course, this rule is to stop the sort of EIC farming where the younger child that is working claims the older child who is not, in school, perhaps, so that he can get the EIC.

Yes, there is no requirement that the taxpayer be alive to got it. That is assuming the deceased had 'earned income', of course. For retirees, the total is $250.

If you go to the standard cover letter, and modify it not by changing any spacing, but just going to the word 'Federal' and changing that to 'Federal & State' it should be properly spaced. I do that every year, first thing.

http://apps.irs.gov/app/eitc2009/SetLanguage.do?lang=en http://www.irs.gov/publications/p929/ar02.html

To use the quote function, you can either choose the "Reply" button on the message, which will put the whole message in quotes. Then you can edit out the part you don't want, if any. That is the easiest, and the best, because it puts the name of the poster and date and time of the post, at the start of the quote. OR, you can manually type in [ quote] at the start of the quote, and then [/quote ] at the end, with what you are quoting in between the two, of course. Note that to make that show up, rather than to indent it as a qyote, I had to add an extra space in each [ ] box. There should be no spaces in the box for it to work.

The better our computers get, the more complex they get, and thus the more problems may pop up. It's a trade-off for all the nice new bells and whistles, I guess. Of course, sometimes it's just that the servers are getting flooded, and you just can not get through. I had to try 6 times to get in, but them everything went fine on that 6th try.

Well, best thing is just to remind them that you have no control over the IRS processing, and so all you can give them is an ESTIMATE, at best. And I tend to be just a tiny bit pessimistic until I've had enough feedback to know how the season is flowing. Later, with more data, I can give an estimate with more comfort. Right now, I just remember a couple of years ago, when the IRS had major problems in the first two weeks.

I got my Fed ack, still waiting for state ack, which normally is two or three days after feds. It was actually posted 1/16, although I did not check for it until today.

I intend to assume that anyone drawing SS in 2008 got the payment. It does not matter if the payment was applied to some other debt, that is still considered a payment to them.

Yes, the casinos all send out a year-end report now, to any one who uses their cards. It has been accepted by every auditor I've known, because it is more accurate than any other method.

IRS acks, service center, and general 1040 efile info 1/18/2010 Below are the top 5 IRS rejects we received in our first batch of acknowledgements: Reject Code 679 (10,509) -- Prior year AGI or prior year PIN does not match what is on file with the IRS. Tip: Use the Practitioner PIN option. Select the box directly beneath the entry where you enter your ERO PIN. The practitioner PIN does not require the use of the taxpayer shared secret entries. Reject Code 504 (10,150) -- Dependent or Qualifying Child SSN and corresponding name control (first 4 letters of last name) does not match what is on file with the IRS. Tip: Review the Social Security Card. If what you have matches the Social Security Card, the taxpayer may want to contact the Social Security Association to see what they have on file Reject Code 501 (8,146) -- Qualifying SSN on Schedule EIC and the corresponding Child Name control must match what is on the IRS Master File. Tip: Review the Social Security Card. If what you have matches the Social Security Card, the taxpayer may want to contact the Social Security Association to see what they have on file Reject Code 541 (7,368) -- When the filing status equals Single, HH or QW the age of the qualifing taxpayer must be older than the age of each qualifying child on EIC - or - When the filing status equals MFJ the age of the primary or secondary taxpayer must be older than the age of each qualifying child on EIC. Reject Code 1132 (7368) -- Schedule M. Economic Recovery received does not match IRS Master Records. Tip: An economic Recovery Payment may have been received if social security benefits, supplement security income, railroad retirement benefits, or veterans disability compensation or pension benefits were received. The taxpayer may not realize they received the $250 economic recovery payment as it was paid with their benefits. How can you tell we got your efile? You have access to the Return Status tool on the support site. Key in the SSN and you'll track the efile thru our system. If you call Customer Service, choose prompt #1 to use our automated Return Status system. Starting Monday, January 18, 2010: Normal drain cycle begins 11 AM, 6 PM and 2 AM Service Center Time Please be aware of 4 possible EFC Rejects: EFC Reject 38 -- Program or Form(s) Update needed. You will receive this if you have not updated to the latest version of the Federal Module, Bank, or State. We are checking the latest form version. EFC 15-- The fees on the bank application do not match the fees submitted on the ERO bank application. Check your fees shown on your support site against the fees you entered in the return; they must match. EFC 12- The return has been previously submitted to the EFC. You can use the Return Status tool on the support site to view the current status of that efile which you already submitted. alternatively, the taxpayer may have already efiled that rerturn with another CCH SFS customer, which would result in a Rej 12.

Sounds sensible to me. And it's easy to modify the date on the form, just unprotect it and change it.

Well, the mistake is telling them the most optimistic date or time. If you tell them "we can't start filing until the 15th, then the IRS takes several days to get their system working, so expect it by the next Monday at best" you won't lead them to unreasonable expectations.

The IRS will not being giving any acknowledgements until Monday January 18th or Tuesday 19th. That is the latest news I've seen on the subject.

If you have not already done so, don't forget to look at the top of the first page, for the 'pinned' topic about tips on using the program. It's right at the top.

Of course, that 'win' percentage is very distorted, because it covers only those that actually went all the way to court, while in most cases if they had a good argument, they won at least enough to satisfy themselves in the appeals process that happens before they ever actually go to court. The IRS does not like to make precedent in the taxpayer's favor, so if there is a fair chance they will lose, they will compromise before it ever gets to the court. It's important you remember that when advising a client about fighting for his point of view.

Glad it helped. Actually, this time of year, lot's of 'newbies' ask that sort of thing, or at worst, wonder it and don't ask, so they make things harder just because they have not yet learned all the neat things this program has included. Once they learn to 'bunny hop' and to ask questions here, they find that the program speeds up quite a bit, and has lots of extras they can use.

If you are correct, and I hope you are, that would seem to be a real softening in the defining of what is deductible. So you are reading it the way Jainen did, as allowing the losses from the non-winning days to still go to Sch A? I hope you are right. However, either way, it redefines what goes to Line 21, and that is sure going to lead to incredible reporting problems, so I foresee the IRS getting that changed by Congress, don't you? Because Congress already said that you could only take your losses on Sch A, and only to the extent of your gains. And that the winnings went to determine Total Income. [Thus Line 21] This court allowed some of those losses to, in effect, go to that determination of Total Income. In Norgaard v. Commissioner, KTC 1991-107 (9th Cir. 1991), the 9th Circuit upheld the Tax Court's refusal to make an estimate because, among other reasons, there was no evidence presented (by the taxpayer) of winnings not reported on Forms W2-G. Claiming winnings only if they are reported on W-2Gs, while tying to net the losses of those days, seems to me to be asking for trouble.

Antarctica ? :lol:

Go to MyATX, then the Download Center, look on the left, Conversions is the 7th item down. There you can download conversion programs for almost every other software program.