Catherine

His lack of planing and work is not YOUR emergency. I have let plenty of clients become "late filers" after warning them of the penalties and consequences -- in writing, by USMail, certified/return. Usually doesn't take too many iterations before they "get it" and those who don't get used to paying the penalties. I have to re-learn, the hard way, every couple of years, that I *cannot* allow myself to care more about their tax returns than they do!

THIS one I can almost understand, as having a new baby will frazzle anyone's brain. And if the kidlet is more than a couple months old, everyone already knows, right?

Some of the memory foam mattresses are so heavy that your cash could be considered safer there -- no thief could get to it!

Even if not required, my advice is to file the CA return and at least start the SOL. And make sure you read the state rules for the trustee's residence (was it CO?) as the trust may have a filing requirement there, even if no income in that state.

NO. STOP. The phrase "for whatever reason" is not a "justification" for deductions, it is a statement that some small portion of client work must be done at their locations for reasons too various and detailed (and confidential!) to type out. Travel from the world headquarters of this business to that client location is BUSINESS, solely and utterly. The daily commute is the walk down the hall to this SOLE business use office.

We're not trying to slice things into tiny slivers, but there are some potential deductions. Lots of folks have an office in home where they nonetheless do NOT qualify for the home office deduction, because of the "exclusive" rule. If I had a rented office and brought my house bills in to work on in "off" times, my rent would still be fully deductible. If I sit here, at my work desk, and use it to look up my home banking to make sure I did schedule that electric bill -- boom; I've just lost my "exclusive" use and the home office deduction. But this IS my business's sole office, and when I go to a client's site, that is solely business miles -- I'm going to their location for the purpose of doing work that cannot be done from/at my location for whatever reason. As for the cell phone -- yes, the first line to the house is personal. But did she add specific services *just* for the business? A larger data plan, more text messages, a nationwide instead of local, the ability to hook up a fax? There may be some exclusive-to-business services that are deductible. OTOH -- she may just want to deduct everything as others have told her. In which case, here's your hat what's your hurry.

I generally charge $15 per recipient. Corrections (or additions after the e-file has been sent in) go to $20 each. One guy, who despite just-about-weekly reminders all year did not get me any info on 2012 1099s until *November* 2013, got charged $45 each.

Definitely CA trust -- but check the CO laws; some states require trust return based on where TRUSTEE resides. Else just CA. File returns even with no tax due; else they WILL come looking for it. If trust document does not require dist's it may be complex EVEN IF dist's were made.

The "Export" and "Import" work pretty much like the backup; choose from "Tools" menu and follow the prompts. Have not used those yet this year, but last year I started some returns at one workstation, exported them to the shared backup drive, and imported them to the other workstation and it was quick and seamless.

Carolbeck: click the ":more reply options" and attach a file you choose from your computer.

from a facebook friend

Same message -- data not in system -- except client was using real data!

Sounds to me like, technically, the estate was selling estate property before distribution to the heirs. Passing through sales proceeds via K-1 to the heirs is the right way to handle it. Assuming there were no provisions in the will/trust documents that required something else. Read the legal documents; while we are not lawyers (and don't even play ones on TV) we still need to read those. There are provisions that can affect how we handle taxation of certain items, pass-through to beneficiaries, and more.

I have a bunch of engineers as clients and there are lots of tax folks (around here, at least) who won't touch them with a 10' pole. Double-check, nit-pick, demand explanations.... at some level I understand (being an scientist/engineer by training myself) but it can get annoying. I remember a client some years back (moved; went to someone else, whew) who spent several hours of hisr own time investigating a $4 "discrepancy" between my depreciation figures (from ATX, on several TENS of thousands of dollars of equipment) and the ones he got from QuickBooks -- and wanted me to "justify" MY figures!! Yeah, right. $4 out of thousands, and he wants a dissertation. I think I told him that QB uses a less-sophisticated algorithm for those calculations because they want you to pay more for their more-sophisticated fixed asset manager software. He bought that explanation and decided he could let the $4 difference ride -- for that year, anyway.

jklcpa's post above -- the map of the tri-state area with the "just kill me" section. about 9 posts up from this one.

We are now at the point we get to every several winters -- where poor Doug has to go out on snowshoes to pack down the snow around the driveway (stone walls line the driveway) so that our snowblower can toss more snow *above* the existing snow. Else it hits and avalanches back into the driveway. And I'm going to download my own personal copy of the "just kill me" graphic; it's so funny and so right.

sent to me by my daughter -- from last year but just as funny today. http://fmobserver.com/fargo-man-arrested-for-clearing-snow-with-flamethrower/#

Let's see -- second MA return sent in on 2/5, MassDOR didn't bother to accept it until 2/10, refund received earlier this week - Tuesday maybe? Real fast once they accepted the return, but it was small. First MA return sent in the day before and accepted faster BUT a larger refund that client had not yet seen last I heard couple days ago.

Sympathies!!

So does "various". It's just like "unknown" only not. Sheesh.

You mean a keyboard with integral real-time printer?!?!

Because of course the gov't needs to use the browser with the most egregious security problems. Sigh.

To deal with the phone calls: http://www.callruby.com/ Very reasonable and everyone who talks to them loves them. No problem signing up for 1 or 2 months so it's not like you're locked in. Plus they have an alternate phone number to call ME and can patch calls through if (under guidelines you give them) the call warrants it. Highly recommended.

I have a couple of clients who cannot get anything but gobbledygook from the "Where's My Refund" site and the common thread is Safari browser on a Macintosh. Anyone know if this is a known issue?

Actually, the polar bear population is the highest that it has been in the last five decades.