joanmcq

Congrats from here too!

Ok, Julie you are right down the street from me. I don't have mine. Wait, maybe I didn't check my mail yesterday. Hmmmm.

See, all they have to do is drop 'AMT' and market it as the 'fair tax'. I've seen a few proposals to disallow deductions for mortgage interest over a lower amount that currently allowed, and/or taxes paid (especially taxes paid). So, if its called AMT its bad, flat tax its good....

I think I read that some folks have received the 2006 archival disc. Nothing to me yet. Anyone know when they shipped? I'm not on the new board yet because they don't recognize my email address and I forgot to call yesterday.

Line 31. ATX has a worksheet/Form to input the info from the 593-B, and then it should flow to the proper line on the 541. You have to fill out the worksheet to efile, if you don't efile, you have to attach a copy of the form.

See, though, the H1-B visa is job specific. The fees were to transfer it from her employer in Sunnyvale (near San Jose) to a new employer in LA. Because she agreed to pay, I'm thinking non deductible even though the arrangement was illegal. But then I think that because it was a transfer, and not the initial H1-B maybe I've got a chance.

well, the client is saying, well, his wife and the employer 'came to an agreement' which if she wanted the job, she had to pay the attorney fees. And since she needed the job, he's like, 'what do you do?'. But since they are under audit, I'm wondering if the IRS will accept the deduction for the attorney fees as employee business expenses or if they are SOL.

If its rooms in the same home, only the areas for the exclusive use of the tenant are deductible, (following the OIH rules) and no losses are allowed. Areas used both by the tenant and the owner are considered personal use areas. So if he rents out two bedrooms and a bath for exclusive use by the tenant, but the living room and kitchen are shared, the LR and kitchen can't be used in the square footage calculations for deductible rental expenses. However, if there is a basement apartment or some such fully contained rental area (and no areas are shared), I would treat it as a duplex.

The employer is by law supposed to pay all H1-B attorney fees associated with the preparation and filing of the petition, unless the employee's wage rate less the expenses is still higher than the required wage rate. The employee may be required to pay translation and visa fees.

I'm not sure if this case is different because the fees are for the transfer, and not for the initial filing for the visa.

Is he renting a room or rooms in his home, or does he live in a duplex? The rules are different between renting a portion of your personal residence and renting half of a duplex.

I asked this on another board, but got no answers, so maybe someone has an opinion, I hope?

I know the attorney fees, etc to obtain an H1-B visa are not deductible employee biz expenses, but what about fees to transfer an existing visa from one company to another? Client got married and moved to be with husband and had to move from Bay Area to LA, and get a new job. Could the fees be considered job search and not fees to enter a profession?

So what is the number for support???? I hope they're working overtime hours for this.

Ok, I just tried, and the system doesn't recoginze my email address when I go in to upgrade ATX user. Now they send update emails to me...what the %$#@?

Not for ESPPs; they are horrible to compute.

I also started doing tax with a large firm and Profx. With ATX I do miss the 'state if different' column for K-1 entry. With ATX you must manually enter K-1 differences (at least with CA returns) on Sch CA; there is no state entry area for K-1s. But I could not afford the high priced guys when I started out as a sole practitioner, and don't have too many clients with K-1s so I muddle through. Another area where one has to pay careful attention is in the sale of business assets, if basis is different for the state than the federal. the differences have to be entered manually in a worksheet; they do not flow automatically from the asset entry.

Stock option calculation worksheets like, can I say it...TurboTax has? I created a spreadsheet for NQSOs based on the TT worksheet, but for ESPPs I've actually taken the client's info to work to calculate the taxable portion...

Thank you!

I think I'm still waiting for some acks (see post about piggyback states), and one pickup in about an hour and a half (already efiled). One client never sent in his 8879s so I'm not sure what to do. He doesn't actually have a filing requirement because income last year was so low, but I think I have to timely file to get him his $30 TTC (which will be applied to back taxes). Oh well, at least I did get a nap this afternoon. Its was lovely.

Two states that are either piggybacked or 'state only' are in 'IRS cleared' status, and have been for a while. What does that mean? Most of my experience is with CA, and its a 'direct state' so the file doesn't go through the IRS.

I think the package could also be useful for someone using another tax package that does NOT do the Ohio city returns to buy as an add on. Could be a way of marketing ATX to the non-ATX user. Since many people buy ATX for the business returns, for example, this could be another way of marketing a segment of the program, not necessarily a way to nickle and dime us up to MAX. Although with my needs, it became just easier to get MAX than the PPR and other modules I needed.

NEVER NEVER NEVER send three years of returns in the same envelope!!! The GS .5 in the mailroom will take the docs out of the envelope and staple them all together. The first return on the stack gets processed, and the rest get lost.

This year I did efile all of my extensions, and was happy to have the confirmation that the extension was received. I wasn't happy that my direct debit failed to go through, and had to send a check late...at least I test processes like these on my own return...

certified mail

If he sold stock in the 401(k) its not a taxable event. If he sold stock and took a distribution, its taxable at ordinary income rates and is not capital gain income, but retirement income. He doesn't get to net it against his capital loss.

Of course, if you read the article, you realize the providers being suspended are those that didn't send in the 8453s as required. Now the system did break down when the 'send in the 8453s or else' letters went out, but what part of 'must be mailed within 3 days of filing' don't these preparers understand? Jeez, some of them were sending in over 100.

One of my new clients this year is a woman who became totally blind as an adult. She is the most calm, centered person I've ever met. Even the nasty divorce she was going through did not raise her ire (although she did have a lot of questions because she couldn't actually read the divorce papers). When reading these posts I immediately thought of how she would make the perfect customer service agent; even the most irate practitioner or taxpayer couldn't make her mad, and she is the kind of caring person that would make sure the cases were taken care of. Unlike the lump of flesh I talked to in Chamblee last week that couldn't understand that taking two months to record a faxed in response to a CP2000 could be a problem at her end, and not the fault of the taxpayer.