kcjenkins

Generally, when changing from a Sch C or a 1065 to an S corp, [or a C corp, for that matter] the business assets are contributed to the corp in a tax-free exchange for stock. So if, for example, you are contributing $200,000 of equipment, etc with a book value of $100,000, and you set par at $1, you'd issue yourself 100,000 shares at $1. Debit Equipment $200,000 credit Acc Depreciation $100,000, and credit Common Stock $100,000.

Yes.

About 10.4 hours.

The penalty for obvious fraud by tax preparers is way too lenient, IMHO. These sentences are nothing more than a slap on the wrist. If you are convicted of money laundering under the RICO act you get 20 YEARS prison time and a $250,000 fine. A drug dealer who sells a couple ounces or cocaine gets longer than this. Until the government makes these penalties hurt and hurt bad these criminals will continue to steal taxpayer monies. Also, making more laws NEVER curbs criminals, just look at the strict "gun control" laws...DC, Detroit and Chicago have the toughest gun control laws in the nation so you would think they would be the SAFEST cities in the US, however they are just the opposite. They lead in the number of murders and other crimes where guns are used. Criminals ignore the laws, ESPECIALLY WHEN THEY LEAD TO SENTENCES LIKE THIS. 46 months for committing this deliberate fraud 3,193 times? And what about those 3,193 people who filed those bogus returns? Any punishment for them?

A former Chicago tax preparer was sentenced to nearly four years in prison for filing nearly 3,200 false federal income tax returns that claimed refunds totaling more than $3.37 million for clients. Verlean Hollins was sentenced Thursday to 46 months in prison and fined nearly $800,000 after pleading guilty in January to two counts of aiding and assisting in the preparation of false federal income tax returns. Hollins, 43, of South Holland, Ill., was ordered to begin serving her sentence on Sept. 23 by U.S. District Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan. The $798,250 fine, which Hollins agreed to but does not currently have the ability to pay, represents twice the product of the 3,193 false returns, multiplied by Hollins’ average client fee of $125. This was “not a minor offense, there was significant loss to the government over a period of years,” Judge Der-Yeghiayan said in imposing the sentence in U.S. District Court. “Defendant stole from the people,” he said, adding her crime “became a business lifestyle.” Hollins, who owned Taxes, Etc., Inc., admitted that for calendar years 2009 through 2011, she filed a total of 3,193 individual income tax returns for clients, each of which claimed false education tax credits. As a result, she falsely claimed refunds totaling more than $3.372 million for her clients, the majority of whom paid her approximately $125 to prepare their returns. The vast majority of Hollins’ clients never indicated that they or a dependent were eligible for a college tuition credit, and among the small number of her clients who were eligible for the tax credit, none provided any documents to support eligibility, prosecutors pointed out. The government was represented by Assistant U.S. Attorney Kaarina Salovaara. The sentence was announced by Zachary T. Fardon, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, and James C. Lee, special agent-in-charge of the Internal Revenue Service Criminal Investigation Division in Chicago.

The pastor asked if anyone in the congregation would like to express praise for answered prayers. Suzie stood and walked to the podium. She said, "I have a praise. Two months ago, my husband, Phil, had a terrible bicycle wreck and his scrotum was completely crushed. The pain was excruciating and the doctors didn't know if they could help him." You could hear a muffled gasp from the men in the congregation as they imagine the pain that poor Phil must have experienced. "Phil was unable to hold me or the children," she went on, "and every move caused him terrible pain." We prayed as the doctors performed a delicate operation, and it turned out they were able to piece together the crushed remnants of Phil's scrotum, and wrap wire around it to hold it in place." Again, the men in the congregation cringed and squirmed uncomfortably as they imagined the horrible surgery performed on Phil. "Now," she announced in a quivering voice, "thank the Lord, Phil is out of the hospital and the doctors say that with time, his scrotum should recover completely." All the men sighed with unified relief. The pastor rose and, tentatively, asked if anyone else had something to say. A man stood up and walked slowly to the podium. He said, "I'm Phil." The entire congregation held its breath. "I just want to tell my wife the word is sternum."

90% Of People Can't Pronounce This Whole Poem. You Have To Try It. If you can pronounce correctly every word in this poem, you will be speaking English better than 90% of the native English speakers in the world. After trying the verses, a Frenchman said he’d prefer six months of hard labor to reading six lines aloud.

FROM MY SON: From the description this doesn't sound connected to HeartBleed to me. With that said, I don't discount that a Microsoft patch, in response to HeartBleed, might have unintentionally broken something that affect the Toshiba software. Heart Bleed did not "re-route traffic to a different location". Its not a virus, it is a vulnerability that a hacker could exploit. Its a bug in a very popular software library that, if exploited, would expose data from a server. Here is a great cartoon that actually explains what HeartBleed is and how its exploited: http://xkcd.com/1354/

Are you talking about ATX's PaperlessPlus? Or some other program? Have you checked out http://www.simpleocr.com/ ?

Try to see Monticello if you can, it's fascinating. Of course, you could spend all days at the Smithsonian, easily!

In most states, the articles of incorporation must state the maximum number of shares of stock that can be issued. There is no need to actually issue the maximum number of shares - you can issue a lesser number. For example, if a corporation has two shareholders, you can authorize a maximum of 1,000 shares, but give each shareholder only 250 shares. This way, you have the flexibility to add more shareholders. Otherwise, if additional shares were needed, the articles of incorporation would have to be amended. There is no maximum on the number of shares that can be authorized. However, some states, notably Delaware and Nevada, do base their annual corporation fee on the number of authorized shares. In some states, notably Delaware and Nevada, the "par value" must be stated on the articles. Par value is a dollar value assigned to each share, regardless of its market price. Par value is simply for accounting and tax purposes, since stock can be sold at whatever price a buyer is willing to pay. The corporation, however, cannot sell stock for less than its par value. And since some states base their annual corporation fee on the total par value of the stock, it is advisable to choose a low par value, such as 0.01 or even 0.001 per share. I typically set par value at $1, especially with unsophisticated clients, but it's really a judgement call.

Dee, I think you and your client have to decide, not the CPA, whether the Sch C ended 12/31 and the new Corp started 1/1, which would be my choice, or if it ended on 1/1, which would mean a lot of extra reporting for one day. And since that would be a zero income day, what's the point? I'm not clear why you have to explain anything to the CPA, but if you do, think about this. A business starts when it is open for business, and it ends when it stops being 'open for business'. So the Sch C ended 12/31, regardless of when they sold the assets. How often have you seen a business close, but not sell the assets for a month or more? And I've seen a business sell off some of their assets before closing, too. Hope this helps.

You need to have a standard policy. Either you agree to file the return and get paid later, or you don't give it to them to sign until they pay. Spouses can't sign for each other. Send him/her out to their car to get the other spouses' signature.

Scottsdale, Ariz. (May 19, 2014) By Michael Cohn, Editor-in-Chief, AccountingToday.com The American Institute of CPAs is pushing back against a proposal by Internal Revenue Service Commissioner John Koskinen to offer a form of voluntary tax preparer certification after a series of court rulings invalidated the IRS’s efforts to require mandatory testing and continuing education of preparers. Last week, the IRS missed a deadline to file a petition with the Supreme Court to overturn district and appeals court rulings that the agency had overstepped its statutory authority in imposing its Registered Tax Return Preparer program (seeIRS Drops Further Appeals of Court Decision Invalidating Tax Preparer Regulation). Koskinen has said that the chances of getting the Supreme Court to review the case, known as Loving v. IRS, were unlikely. He now favors offering a voluntary form of certification if Congress fails to give the IRS the authority to regulate tax preparers, which seems unlikely given the current mood on Capitol Hill toward the IRS. At the AICPA’s Spring Meeting of Council in Scottsdale, Ariz., AICPA president and CEO Barry Melancon said Monday he plans to talk with Koskinen on Tuesday to explain the AICPA’s opposition to a voluntary form of tax preparer regulation. “It was our hope, based on a meeting that we had at the IRS, that they would not go forward with a proposal in this area,” he said. “Congress is not going to give them authority, which it would take to make it a mandatory system. It now looks like the IRS is absolutely set on going forward with a voluntary tax return preparer registration system, which we believe fails just about all of the objectives that were stated. It’s not going to root out bad preparers because if you’re a fraudulent preparer, [taxpayers are] not going to find out from a voluntary system. It’s not cost effective. It actually takes resources away from some of the service issues that the IRS is facing right now with taxpayers and tax preparers. And frankly, it’s contrary to what the court decision basically said.” While the court rulings left in place the IRS’s Preparer Tax Identification Number registration system, the AICPA believes it has a better approach to regulating unlicensed tax preparers. “The fifth point is that we believe that an enhanced or modified PTIN system can actually meet the objectives that they’re trying to create, without creating a new bureaucracy associated with a whole new system that, in the end, we believe will cause confusion in the marketplace because it really won’t mean what the IRS believes a registration process and a certificate from the IRS would mean,” said Melancon. “We are very concerned about the mess that would come out of that being used as a legislative impetus to try to get legislation going forward. Our Tax Executive Committee and our tax staff have been very active on this issue. We’ve had some meetings with the IRS. Frankly, we’re concerned about process as much as anything else.” Melancon said he is concerned that the IRS is moving too quickly without listening to much feedback, which he noted is different than the approach the IRS has previously taken on such issues. He plans to bring that up in his conversation Tuesday with Koskinen. “I actually have a conference call with the commissioner tomorrow afternoon to discuss this issue and to make very plain our concerns not only with substance but also with the process on this particular issue,” he said. Melancon added that the AICPA’s proposals on the federal PTIN system could also function at the state level. “We believe that our PTIN solution that we have proposed actually would work for a state answer as well, where they could just hook into the PTIN issue and not have to have a replicated environment in the states,” he said. Melancon said the AICPA has also been asking the IRS to provide more resources for practitioners when they need help. “We know the practitioners have said it’s been a pretty bad tax season because of the inability to interact with the Service,” he said. “From that standpoint, it’s a resource issue, so on the one hand we have concerns about the registration system, but on the other hand we’re actually advocates for the IRS to getting a different resource answer to be able to enhance these issues.”

Well, it can be used now, since she paid it. If so, then the reimbursement become 'income' in 2014. If not used in 2013 the reimbursement won't be taxable in 2014. So it gives you some planning options based on timing issues.

And that makes no sense, because a simple computer cross-check should catch them all. That's why, if you deduct alimony, you have to list the SSN of the spouse who receives it.

The thing is, if you are carrying valuables, and/or medication, you need at least one piece of hard-side luggage for those items. Plus, most of us take too much. Taking less also gives you a good excuse to shop for something new !

Thanks, John, for that great tip.