Catherine

Client has a condo that levied a "special assessment" against all owners to deal with capital improvements. But the paperwork says it's to pay the loan. My take is that the improvements are additional basis in the unit, and since the loan is not in the taxpayer's name it is therefore not deductible mortgage interest. Thoughts? As an aside, this client is already greatly limited by mortgage interest deduction limits in what can be deducted.

Double and triple check that you have the EIN listed correctly. If it still demands a 1041, I'd say paper-file the thing and be done with it. Even include the e-file rejection 'reason' if you wish.

Anyone looking for a couple of CPE hours in late April, I'm presenting online. https://www.bigmarker.com/tax-practice-pro-inc1/When-1040s-Go-Wrong-Navigating-a-Tax-Train-Wreck @Lion EA saw the first presentation of this, live, last September.

All you can do is file a zero-information federal extension. Gives him 6 months on the SOL to claim any refund, if he finally gets his docs to you next year. We are not their mommies and can't make them do anything. Nor can we allow ourselves to care more about their own taxes than they do. If he has late penalties and interest it's not your fault and there's nothing you could have done to fix it.

Many clients use this. My one warning is that partial payments do NOT work. They take the full tax due. If someone wants to make a partial payment, have them go to Direct Pay or the state site - or use checks and coupons.

I've had a policy for years - and my annual tax letter states in bold - that any return not ready for signatures and e-filing as of April 1st *will* be put on extension. My cutoff is March 15th, but the poison pill in it is that I have to have all the documents and information in-house by that date. People rush to get me docs on March 14th & 15th - but it's never, ever, complete, so they have not made the cutoff. Manage your clients, or they'll manage you into premature gray hair and high blood pressure.

Drake has an entire separate signature page for bank information. Very glad for that; it has caught some major client errors (not all) beforehand.

Husband & I were at the local mall briefly last week. Someone was absolutely drenched in some awful cologne stuff. I could barely breathe, and we couldn't get out of that area fast enough. Ugh!

I have had three who took 100% (or nearly) for business. One former client (moved on), one current. One of them was a dump truck. Impossible to use for personal use. The other two are comprised of one small pickup, totally kitted up for business (no one else can fit in it), and one van, also kitted up for business including no place for anyone but a driver to sit. Both guys have motorcycles and other family cars for personal driving. Neither takes 100% business, but 90-95%. With mileage logs.

I've been using Drake since the 2012 season, and it is not the first time I've seen crashes - but there are more this year than in previous years. Earlier years were once or twice a season, this year it has been less than once a week but maybe three times in a month. I have found that if it freezes, If I just let it alone it wakes up after an eternity - or, ten seconds or so. The times it has frozen or crashed I have never lost anything, so that's a good thing. My email program has far more troubles than Drake, and it has a lot less to do. And when email crashes, it takes a long time to re-load.

The Tax Book has one, as well.

And I busted my hindquarters all afternoon on Monday and got abso-bleeping-lutely nowhere. Might as well have gone to the movies. And I detest movie theaters! Anyone else so fed up with this season that there is just nothing left to give? Everything from all my clients is in more disarray than prior years - and by a lot, not a little. I have come so close in the last several days to telling a raft of clients just what I think of them at the moment that it's not funny. Maybe I ought to stop answering the phone for a few days.

Had one lady years ago who would bring her docs in one of those Dutch butter cookie tins. Everything smelled of cookies. Finally told her that if she was going to do that, to leave me a couple of cookies. The next year she brought an envelope, doggone it all.

If so, I will apologize for a snarky comment. Very bad afternoon; no patience for anyone or anything right now.

Thank you.

My first thought, yes - but doesn't that open us up to nastygrams from the IRS because it doesn't match 1099-K monthly totals? The guidance was that best practice is to list all the bleepity-bleep individual sales as individual sales.

I thought most states had reciprocity on pensions, so the tp gets taxed in resident state only rather than issuing state. But I have no understanding of CA other than that "they're special" (or, think they are, and make pro's miserable because of it).

FWIW, I have had a couple of random shutdowns this season, and another couple of random times when the program seemed to freeze - but each time it eventually (probably not more than 30 seconds) responded just fine. I've had to call support a couple of times this year, and each time I've gotten someone on the ball, very helpful, and was able to resolve the issue. One item (don't recall it) took two calls but it was a subtle thing.

You'll still see me using guys or folks. Both, to my mind, are utterly generic - like Kleenex is a tissue, rather than a brand. Y'all is a regional term that I've heard people being castigated for appropriating when they are not from the South. Tough noogies. I got no patience for thin skins when we're all just trying to help each other out, and find getting offended to be offensive.

Client sold off a bunch of stuff that he doesn't use any more on ebay, and got a 1099-K. He actually had purchase prices, and purchase dates on all the items! However, there are a slew of the #$%^ things, and the total gain for the entire year was a whopping couple hundred bucks. Is it kosher to bundle these by month, so sale totals match the 1099-K monthly totals, for only six entries (he didn't sell in every month), or do I really need to list every bleeping one of these things (several dozen) individually?

Prior year returns get my current-year rates, adjusted as always for complexity of the return in question. Won't even look until after 4/15 or they can go elsewhere. Have a new one this year, two amended returns, sent by his brother who is handling their now just-passed mother's final return. He's fine with waiting until May, after discovering an error for 2021 & 2022 (thanks, TTx - the gift that keeps on giving).

We'll get one on occasion. Many times the email address is junk. Sometimes it will be something like "Joseph Smith, [email protected]" and if you look up smithcorp dot com there is no site. Junk!

Thank you, @mwrightea - that's (mainly) what I told the client. I've added in to the basis the assessments that were tagged with comments such as "Assessment - road improvements" plus a couple of selling fees. Thank you. No, they most certainly did *not* tell him about penalties for not withholding taxes - and of course, none were withheld. They're going to have a tidy little bill from Colorado.

Some of my favorite people, yeah - not. They were probably thinking about the CO capital gains exclusion for farmland bought before 2009 - but that's (a) only CO, and (b) only for those filing Schedule F with their 1040.

Client sold property in Colorado, part of an association. He tells me that the HOA dues and assessments for the entire time he owned the place are additions to his basis, and that the CO realtor told him this is what is done in CO. Sounds suspicious, at best, to me. I can see assessments being added to basis (association roads, roofs, etc), but not standard HOA fees for mowing and plowing and general maintenance. Can't find anything in Colorado rules about this. Anyone here have advice?