Catherine

MalWareBytes - it's free (upgrades to paid licenses also available and pretty cheap too). Different from anti-virus software and CCleaner. Searches for deep rootkit issues.

They just never stop, do they?!

You (or someone) could try to get the alternative media to do an expose. Breitbart, Project Veritas, newsy bloggers, that ilk. What used to be known as the press (see, Judy, I am avoiding giving the name I actually use for those ... well, I'll stop here, too) will likely have little to no interest as their agenda is elsewhere - but the smaller outfits might, as it would be the type of exposure that would do them quite a bit of good. P.S. - my notes to Judy are intended to be funny! Hard to tell intent in print; there's no emoji for tongue in cheek.

Hoping that everyone here on this board has a WONDERFUL Thanksgiving with friends and family. I am so very grateful for ALL of you on this board.

Or I could be completely suffering from pre-Thanksgiving distraction and not know which end is up.

Scholarships by the school itself. Scholarships by specialty donors or for specific purposes. Of course, none of those ever exceed tuition charged...

The implication of the 1099 is that this may be a *taxable* scholarship. The first thing to figure out, in connection with the business that issued it, is whether or not it is taxable. Once you do that, yes the best way to handle it would be C-EZ, back it out, and if taxable it ends up on Line 21. Another way would simply be to put it on Line 21 to start with. Then use Tuition & Fees to zero out the taxable income, or the non-refundable portion of AOC to zero out tax. Or pay the tax and let parents take the full refundable credit if they qualify (and repay kid for tax paid). This is a scenario where you really have to have both tax returns in front of you to figure the best overall results for the family as a whole. It would be foolishness to zero out a couple hundred bucks tax on the kid and have the parents lose $2,500 in credits.

CPAperless's "Signature Flow" e-signatures are also IRS-compliant (says so right on their home page for the product) and also hare per-signature charge rather than a (high!) flat fee annually.

Yes, you can move a registration to a new machine. Think about it: you bought the license to use the software. It's registered to you, not to the particular hardware. What if your machine got a virus and you had to start from scratch? You re-install all your old programs, and the license gets transferred to the new machine. In fact, you can usually install on multiple machines at once; the limits are (usually) on how many installations may run at once and frequently that number is one. So you can have the same license on your desktop at home, your desktop at work, and your laptop - as long as you use the program on one machine at a time. As for buying new software cheap - I do it all the time. Best way to buy Adobe Acrobat, or Quicken, or any of a number of other programs, is to go to eBay and find a NEW, REGISTERABLE copy (that bit is the key) of last year's version (or the year before, or the year before that). Example: Client needed QB, but also needed cheap. Told her to go to eBay and buy a two-year-old new copy of QB desktop; this year's version was hundreds of dollars, the two-year-old version was less than $100; she was thrilled. QB old versions - even brand-new - sell cheap because they stop support for payroll after three years, and sometimes the bank feeds won't work. Well, she doesn't have a payroll; not an issue for her - and some of the bank feeds won't work with brand-new versions, depending on the bank - but almost all have web connect download files available, so do those instead. Heck, I still have (on an older machine) and installation of QB2007 that I sometimes have to pull out for one client's file. It works, they do payroll through a service, why pay for a not-needed upgrade?

I don't do that, because more often than not the IRS sends its letter before they post the client's check payment. So the letter includes the amount of the already-sent-in-but-not-included check. I tell clients to check with me first. Just today I had someone who sent in a little extra, so they did not even owe the amount of penalties plus interest - just the difference between the letter amount and what they had sent in. Told them to pay that difference but include a copy of the cashed check.

If you already own Office Pro 2013 why not just install that on your new machine? I have two machines, one is still running Office 2003, the other one Office 2007. I see no reason to upgrade. In fact, I prefer the 2003 version as there are all kinds of templates etc available as part of the program that have to be obtained online-only (many with fees!) in 2007. I have no doubt that kind of more-money-for-less-utility nonsense has only increased with later versions.

I have never found these calculations to be better than somewhat accurate, and decided a year or two ago that it was better for my clients (ymmv) to warn them of a penalty/interest letter to come. When I was calculating (allowing the program) to calculate, invariably the clients would still get letters - for whatever small amount the calculations were off by; I believe the smallest amount I saw was less than $5 difference - the clients would immediately call ME, all upset (with me!) because they got "more" penalties. Even though of course they had been told the calculations are approximate, you will get a letter even if it's spot-on, showing the breakdown, etc etc etc. Rather than being tempted to be snarky to my clients, I now just tell them "I can't calculate these accurately; they'll figure them out and you'll get a letter." I still get the calls - but at least they're just "I got this letter, do I pay it?" calls rather than angry with me because they got what I told them to expect.

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Well of COURSE - but do people think of pesky things like that when faced with car insurance at $1,000 rather than $6,000? I mean, c'MON now!

Or cheaper insurance if the vehicle is in a person's name.

Excellent advice!

If YOU make up a K-1, then it's fraud. His income you can accept from him - and if *he* nets out the "partnership" loss it's on him. But you should get that information from him in writing, not verbally. But other than his written statement, you have nothing to go on. I'd put it on Sch C (subject to SE tax) as a guaranteed-payment-equivalent, and put in a disclosure statement stating this is the best that can be done because the tax matters partner has disappeared - and give whatever names and EIN's exist. This is one of the tough ones; the client wantst to file, can't because of other people - what do *we* do? Sometimes the best you can do is the best you can do. But still cya, get all info from the client, and disclose the bejezus out of it all.

I did renew today. There were boxes to enter my total CPE, and my ethics-hours CPE, for each year. I have all the certificates, in case my numbers don't match theirs. Although I did include an all-day seminar that I'm going to in another week, for this year.

That was one of the flags for me; the link was to PAY.gov, not IRS.gov. They tell us "watch out!!!!!!!" and then send us weird links with strange names... *what* are they thinking? Oh, wait - that word, "thinking" - I don't think they know what it means.

I usually use the property tax bill (supposed to be on all bills, hollow laugh) or property card record from the online assessor's database (almost always has the info). If I still can't find it, I call the town assessor's office. They have all the splits between land and building values.

Thank you, Lynn and cbslee! I will do that paperwork on Monday; they will want my CPE records and those are at the office.

I got an email from "[email protected]" telling me it's time to renew my EA credential. But it tells me to go to www dot pay dot gov (yes, link goes there) to process my renewal. This is rather different from what I've done in the past (or at least, my memory of that) and was wondering if anyone else has gotten this same email. It seems legit, and seems to match what he IRS now wants - but they've had so many phishing scams and other similar problems that I'm reluctant to go there without someone else saying "yup; it's fine, I just did it."

He had stopped mining before he came to me. Thank heavens!

Every time they "simplify" the tax code, my phone starts ringing off the hook. Plus, all the prior-year issues remain under the old rules and the IRS has ten years to catch up with those. But gee, wouldn't it be nice to help clients make the most out of their business opportunities, rather than our constant scramble to protect them from the ramifications of thoughtless decisions and times being stuck between the rock and the hard place? ("I want to live in Theory. EVERYTHING works in Theory!")

3-5% depending on circumstances. Less for the elderly or those in financial straits. Although even then I usually raise the rate but then give a bigger discount.