Catherine

Good luck to you, Jack!! I am SURE you will pass all sections, first try. Catherine

You guys are great. Thanks!

I believe the parents told the kids that the money was untouchable until retirement. That ought to stick until they're old enough and mature enough to look into it on their own -- by which time they may be mature enough to not touch!

First thing is to get info from the client on where those checks came from. If it turns out to be owner investment, edit the deposit and instead of an income account as the source, choose the owner equity account.

Client received ONE check from a former employer in 2010 as a payment for a patent award; fortunately when the USPS was still forwarding mail after a move. Employer was for 2009; patent award was late. Never got a W-2; company has been bought & sold - plus they moved across country - and he's left voice messages at several HR offices and no one gets back to him. Total is $3100. We have all the tax data from the paystub and there will be no differences since he didn't work for them that year; no insurance, no 401k, no life insurance, no parking benefit, etc. This is less than 5% of their income for 2010. Can we file as-is, or do we really need to wait for a maybe-never-receivable W-2? Wife got laid off and they could really use their refund. TIA, Catherine

I signed up a couple years ago and had NO takers, so didn't bother. This year I thought to re-try, but every time I try to sign up I get an error from the ATX/CCH site saying that they are having problems; try again. Very weird. So I guess I'm not offering it again this year.

Jainen -- your statement is one with which I can concur whole-heartedly!! I think we've all seen that.

I just got rid of -- oops, I mean, "I just had two client appointments back to back" and hope that from here on in I can get lots of work done. Husband and daughter #2 are home, though, and that means that soon someone will start hounding me about what I am going to make everybody for lunch.... and even if I dump it back on them and retreat to my desk with a bowl of Cheerios, I will have been interrupted. The OIC works great when I am by myself!

Hope your headache is better now, Marilyn.

Yes, BUT -- has to be a special custodian. There are companies that specialize in precious metal IRA's, and there are a half-dozen or eight repositories that will hold the physical metal that have dealings with those IRA companies. ETF's don't need a special custodian.

No age limit; client set it up that way so that the kids could participate if they worked. Thanks for the reminder, though!

Thanks for letting us know. The billing invoice has been very aggravating this year. Catherine

Thank you all, very much!! And no, "flummoxed" is not contagious. That would be "flux" (as in old name for intestinal distress, not the soldering supply). Catherine

Hi folks -- I'm brain-dead today; started with a small headache that got MUCH bigger after a long conference call with the IRS on an outstanding matter, so when it came to this little question I'm flummoxed. Client (self-employed) issued W-2's to employees and now wants to know if they did it right on one of them. Has a SIMPLE plan and some employees defer, matches for all, yadda yadda. Client hired under-18 child to do some work (real work, qualifies as work, not subject to FICA, not a heck of a lot of money for the year; under $1K). Child decided to defer ALL pay to SIMPLE (why not as parent was gifting the money to do just that). W-2 shows $0 in box 1, 3, 5, and the total deferred amount in Box 12. Is that right? Or does the total go in Box 1 as well as Box 12? Put the client off saying I'd double check and get back later. Tried to think it through myself and have managed to think myself in circles. TIA, Catherine

I have had THREE clients in the past year try to buy houses in what the Realtors termed "short sales", where the amount offered DID cover the outstanding unpaid mortgage plus outstanding property taxes, etc. TWO of those sales fell through because the banks COULD NOT BE BOTHERED to approve the sale before the offer expired -- even when both of those sales extended the offer date at least twice each. The third sale eventually DID go through, when the buyers extended the bank's "respond-by" date FOUR times and finally the President of the small local bank that was going to be giving the new mortgage loan called the big-box bank's local VP and reamed him a new one (politely). That finally got big-box-bank to approve a sale they should have approved the instant they knew their costs were covered. Perhaps none of these were "short sales" in the exact definition of the term -- but all were TREATED as short sales by realtors and banks alike. So for all intents and purposes, they were indeed short sales. Or, would have been, had they gone through. Catherine

Margaret -- mainly my husband or my cousin Norma find them (or they get sent to them) and then they forward to me. So I get all the credit for almost -none- of the work. ;)

Amazing video. Some people have _way_ too much free time on their hands. They keep us entertained & amused. Zen magnets

Keep getting a recurrent error on a mass 355 (regular corp return). Says Schedule E Line 26 NOL deduction has been calculated incorrectly and/or does not agree with the amount from Schedule E-2, Part 1 Line 8. Except that the NOL -HAS- been calculated correctly, -DOES- match the Federal (except for the adjustment for Mass corp min tax), and -DOES- agree with the amount on Sch E-2 Part 1 Line 8. Suggestions? Comments? I am seeing the guy today and was hoping to get e-file signatures and have now spent about three hours chasing this chimera. (Hmmm, maybe I can still do that and fix this miserable error before submitting.) Catherine

And by "Uncle Sugar" you mean you, me, our kids, our grand-kids, and _their_ kids and grand-kids.

I hold the state return until I get the Federal ack, in case there's a problem. Until ~ April 10th, when I just stuff 'em all through as fast as I can. Once or twice a season the Federal gets rejected (mostly for something the client forgot about) and I can fix the state before the initial filing.

My engagement letter states that I charge by the hour for any additional accounting and bookkeeping required to get the books in order. Track your time, and charge for every minute! _Plus_ the return cost. He'll either learn to add, pay up promptly, or go elsewhere next year. In all three cases you probably come out ahead.

You do like to make a ruckus, don't you, jainen? Where did I say that a bank _should_ care? I stated that they don't, and nothing else. The piece I don't understand is why the banks don't care about getting a decent price for a "toxic asset" and converting that asset from a near-complete liability into a zero-or-very-small written-off loss and move on. So many people I've dealt with have tried to buy houses on short sales for at or _above_ the outstanding loans -- and the bank can't be bothered to give permission. Many of those sales then fall through because the buyer needs a place to live and moves on to more amenable sellers after the expiration of the approval time. Were I a shareholder in some of these banking companies, I'd be putting up a royal stink about that.

I believe so -- and lots of times that 1099-C comes after the individual is no longer insolvent, so they end up paying tax on the cancelled debt. But there is no rushing the 1099-C. The banks just don't care. Just like they can't be bothered to approve a short sale and get the bad asset off their books.

Thanks to all for confirming my thoughts.

Rita -- have I mentioned recently that I love you?!?! I have a bunch of folks who are now on my brand-new "call at 6AM Saturday" list for next weekend.