Catherine

Electronic signatures and electronic records are now acceptable. It seems beyond stupid that they would allow an electronic signature - and then make you print the thing to paper and store it in a file cabinet. Then again, we *are* talking about gov't rules....

I never had to do any of that, either. But I *do* remember dialing calls in my town and only needing five digits (then, in another, even smaller, town, only FOUR digits - almost the last town in the state to get touch-tone dialing). And that was in the 80's and early 90's! (19, not 18, just in case you were wondering)

When it is just one state (for example, mine) I make my best guess and file - they correct and send a bill or refund. But I like the idea of using zero and letting the state figure it out. You could append an explanatory letter stating the amount of withheld tax is unknown because...

I have some clients who I *wish* were that organized....

Whipped still gets of WAY easier than one of RitaB's hugs!

True - but the "where it is" disappears at the Planck limit. Just as there is a lower limit to time, as well. The Planck limit to time is 10^-43 seconds. Tiny, but not infinitely so. Some think this lower limit is what was meant by "the twinkling of an eye" in 1 Cor 15:52, because - as it "just happens" to turn out - that is about the amount of time it takes light to transit through the human cornea.

That at the Planck limit of 10^-35cm, X loses all locality and is everywhere at once.

MA: excise paid to town/city is deductible. NH: portion paid to the TOWN (not the state) is deductible - and is usually the larger amount, too.

That matters?

Yes, but now *everybody* knows! I'm sure they are all terribly curious, too. (Eh, a minor Mass. part-year query, nothing to get your knickers in a twist about.)

So they can hear it when the ambient is noisy? To match the caller? To take out their rage against the world in general?

Almost everyone I have ever dealt with who has dug themselves a nice deep hole has done it by not making provision for SE tax. Sometimes they paid the divorce lawyer, sometimes they needed every penny to pay rent and buy food, sometimes they projected $X for the year and really made $3X and didn't save.

No home office, no cell phone. Maybe mileage. I'll have to talk to her. Yeah, this is definitely a case where the s-i-l, trying to be nice and thank my client for all the help she gave by paying her, really bolluxed things up.

I'll vote for you!

Gail has it exactly. No doubt it's taxable income. I just have a hard time seeing this as being subject to SE tax. It was a favor that went longer than expected, so turned into a paid favor. That is NOT being in the business for profit. Which is where SE tax kicks in.

Trust has to amend the K-1, you can't do it. There is still time for a newly-submitted return to supersede the previous return (assuming that dodge works for trusts as well as individuals) and the only change would be the incorrect ssn. The trust can issue that corrected K-1 to your client immediately - even before submitting a paper amendment, if it has to be done that way. What if they refuse, is the big question. I'd include the K-1 information and disclose that it was issued with the wrong ssn and that the trust has refused to re-issue with corrected information for 2016.

You have a point; my thought was not based on "getting out of tax liability" but rather just that my client was not engaged in a for-profit venture of being a temporary office assistant. And one of the employee-versus-contractor questions is who chooses work times, and my client was definitely in charge of when she was available to help out. So I see that as fundamentally different from hiring on, finding out that if you stay you will hug everyone there, and quitting in short order, never to try similar work again.

A couple of weeks, on a *very* as-I'm-free-to-help basis, to help out s-i-l who got behind on her filing during a busy time. My client and her husband moved and client was actively job-hunting at the time but had some time between job search tasks and interviews to lend a hand. That's why I am thinking NOT subject to SE tax; she is NOT in the business of hiring herself out as office assistant for fun and profit. S-i-l asked for help; it was a little more time than initially thought, so she paid her s-i-l for the time and trouble. Caught up; done; and my client now has a job so she'll not be repeating the activity for her s-i-l or anyone else.

That I have to agree with. It still has somewhat of an olde fashioned "DOS" feel to it. However, since I used DOS for years and years, that feels familiar to me, rather than kludge-y or inelegant.

Absolutely NO ego problem there. I wonder what that lunatic in North Korea thinks *his* titles are? Somehow, I think "a legend in his own mind" is NOT in the litany.

Client helped out her sister-in-law briefly while s-i-l was swamped at her office. Did some filing and copying, basically office grunt work. NOT in the business of hiring herself out as temporary office help. S-i-l gave her a 1099-MISC (rightly) with total in Box 7. Except to my thinking it should have been Box 3, and not subject to SE tax. I'm thinking I need to do a C-EZ, show the 1099, back it off, and then show on Line 21. Yes? No? Other? I'm starting to over-think this one - stop me!

Plus, if you need support they answer within THREE rings, and help you right then and there. I have, on rare occasion, had them need to bump things up a notch and get back to me. Longest it took was two days (after they had told me "about three") and they apologized profusely for the delay. In the meantime, I am still awaiting a promised 48-hour callback from ATX Tech Support, promised in February of 2013. But it's OK; I am not holding my breath. (But that was the return that sent me to Drake; I switched mid-season and have NEVER regretted it.)

By which you do *not* mean "she drives over them without a second thought" I take it?

I tell you, there are times I am SO very tempted to simply scream into the receiver. No words, just a blood-curdling scream. At the least, that caller will be out with a ruptured eardrum for a while. But I don't.

Other option is to use Adobe (or similar) utility of "typewriter" to "type" directly on a blank pdf;.