Catherine

Perfect call on the thumbs-down; lots of times I appreciate a post but do NOT like what it is reporting.

On rare occasion, I get a "permissions" problem on a pdf. If I just copy the thing (right click, "Copy" then right-click "Paste" right in the same folder), the copy will then open right up. Go figure. (My assistant figured out this dodge.)

If the client has records of calls and a planner with meetings listed, that plus mileage from Google Maps or MapQuest or similar can serve as authentication of mileage claims. It's not a specific logbook, but it is a log of activities and locations.

Reminds me of the apocryphal story of the guy who killed his parents, then asked the court for leniency because he was an orphan...

Which is why it's absolutely *beyond* most college financial offices. (If you think you hear a tiny bit of cynicism, you're not wrong.)

I have a client who mined Bitcoins and who occasionally uses them to buy coffee and such. We report every transaction on Sch D, as required. I have a multi-year spreadsheet with all his mining history plus sales per year. Ugh. Nice to know we're in the 830.

Here's my two cents' worth. I have only one payroll (besides my own) that I do in-house. Nanny payroll for a client who is seriously allergic to online *anything* (she is in computer security). $75/month for a weekly payroll, includes monthly state tax payments and SUTA only. Schedule H and W-2 are billed at year-end. Royal PITA because neither she nor the nanny are good about getting me hours for the week when I say I need them, and then of course want instant turn-around on the nanny's paystub (she hand-writes the check for net pay). Jerry Medlin's software *will* work for nanny payroll if you tweak it right, even though it's not officially offered. I bill client quarterly; at least she pays quickly. If I am away, I have to make sure my assistant gets a refresher on running they system before I go so nanny can still get paid. I have several clients for whom I do payroll online through Paychex's "SurePayroll for Accountants" - client logs in, puts in employee hours, all emp's get paid by direct deposit, ba-dum-cha we're done. I download quarterly reports, make sure W-2's go out (additional fee), and enter all new and terminated employee info (easy for me, easy for client to screw up if I let her do it). I get to pick the mark-up over the fee SPfA charges me. I get paid by direct deposit monthly. I can go away for weeks and everything runs smoothly unless a new empl starts up while I'm gone (had not happened). All tax payments are made for the client; it's *their* job to make sure there is money in the checking account. We have one guy unable to log in regularly; we enter his one employee's standard 40 hours every Monday and he's done. Again, it's the SPfA system; my assistant logs in every Monday, puts in "40" and hits run. We download quarterly reports and make sure the W-2 gets mailed. Direct deposit payment to me. All tax payments made by SPfA. Unless you have a good support staff that can run payroll (always, or in a pinch) keep in mind it's a ball and chain on YOUR time.

Yes, and the danger of case law is that each case can "drift" the law a bit further from original intention. After a number of decades, it is possible for "case law" to support doctrines completely antithetical to the clear meaning and intent of the original law. Somehow they need to figure how to balance nuances against original purposes.

The headline says "preparer" but I only see taxpayer penalties. If my client forgets about a 1099 vendor and only tells me in June, how can I be subject to penalty?

I see plenty of reasons to back off from this one. Choice of entity is not generally a "back-off" flag for me - as long as the reason to have me involved in the decision is tax and accounting repercussions, not legal. As soon as the discussion approaches legal, I tell folks "I'm not a lawyer and don't even play one on television" which generally makes them laugh but reinforces that I don't provide any legal advice - except to talk to a lawyer for legal advice! In this instance, though, it seems that the legal aspects are substantial (conglomerates all by themselves are a big flag; THEY will have big-ticket lawyers watching their interests, the builder should have equal protection).

If you have Tic, Tie, and Calculate (an Adobe plug-in from CPaperless) it has shortcuts to bookmark, annotate, repaginate, add a paper tape calculator, add internal hot-links, and rotate single pages. If you use Drake's Gruntworx (Gruntworx was separate, Drake bought it, it works for anyone) it comes with a TTC license. I use it *all* the time. TTC does not work with Nuance, though. I dunno about it working with any other pdf editing programs.

I renewed my PTIN today but it seems that my CPE total doesn't match what they have on record. At some point (soon!) I'm going to need to take a closer look at that. Then make sure that what I have plus what is still scheduled hit the magic 30-hours-with-2-ethics.

I have a non-TWAIN scanner that we use for client docs with the Drake document cabinet. We just save directly to the cabinet. It is literally zero more work - you just do the folder-choosing and file-naming in a different place. I need TWAIN for bank deposits - so I take those to the my home office and use the Kodak i1120 scanner there.

Where my husband grew up, in Los Alamos New Mexico, there was a huge fire about 15-ish years ago. Lots of houses were lost (not his family's house) but plenty of folks he knew either lost homes or had major damage. It's all rebuilt now - but the photos he has from years ago show well-forested mountains, and I've only ever seen mountains that look like they have toothpicks sticking up all over the place. New growth is coming in slowly - but the higher the elevation, the slower it goes. We have never had to "bug out" here in eastern (& central) Massachusetts - although with one storm or another, we have been without power for >1 week several times and without water treatment (plant failure) once that was also a week or more. A number of those times were in central Mass with a well for water. However, it's not impossible that we'd need to bug out from here, and that is not something I've really ever planned for (I have the hunkering down to last out the week-plus down; oil lamps, water sources, burner that hooks up to a propane tank, bleach for water treatment, filtration, ways to stay cool or warm). I'll have to add the bug-out scenario to the list. Thanks.

You don't want to know my thoughts about them. Really.

With Symantec, you can encrypt specific files, specific folders (and everything new put in those folders automatically gets encrypted), specific partitioned drives, or the entire drive. I was basically wondering if W10 mucks up *all* of that (since folders and files use hard drive space) or if it's specific to the C drive, for example.

Gee, I thought they were already doing that.

Do you know anything about W10 and folder-level encryption with Symantec?

'Swhat I thunked.

Yup. We don't have it here - the wifi function on the modem is OFF. People complain; too bad. It's MY hindquarters on the line if their info gets compromised because of my systems. And yes - always run multiple wires.

Has anyone ever seen one of these questioned? A client called me, saying she thought I had one checkbox on the stupid thing wrong (a client who came to me specifically *because* she could not figure out depreciation on a rental property; now she's expert on Form 3115?! lol). I told her to send it in as it was. But it got me to thinking - has anyone ever seen one of these monsters questioned? They get efiled with the returns, a copy gets mailed to Kentucky - and I've never heard a peep about any of them. My working assumption is they figure we do 'em right, maybe look for the 481a correction, and the paper copies just get scanned and attached to the master file. How far off am I, does anyone want to weigh in?

I don't know why my brain recalls these trivial things, but "grievous error" in Russian is "grubuyu oshibku" (with all the u's sounding like ooooooooooooo, not oh).

Sorry, @BulldogTom, but I don't take "sucker bets" ever. LOL!

Ah, *there* is the $64,000 question! When you find an answer, PLEASE let us all know!

I have a smoothed-out rough spot, an appointment for next week, and a strong need for a nap. Which I am going to indulge!