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Posts
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Everything posted by Catherine
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Or cheaper insurance if the vehicle is in a person's name.
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Excellent advice!
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Thank you, Lynn and cbslee! I will do that paperwork on Monday; they will want my CPE records and those are at the office.
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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."
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He had stopped mining before he came to me. Thank heavens!
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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!")
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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.
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Perfect call on the thumbs-down; lots of times I appreciate a post but do NOT like what it is reporting.
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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.)
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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.
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Reminds me of the apocryphal story of the guy who killed his parents, then asked the court for leniency because he was an orphan...
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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.)
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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.
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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.
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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.
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IRS Increases Penalties for Income Tax Preparers in 2018
Catherine replied to Elrod's topic in General Chat
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).
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.