Catherine

Sent the above to a local colleague, who replied, " Simplexity or Complexity? To be or not to be" To which, in a fit of poetical contemplation and with deep apologies to old Will, I responded: "To be, or not to be, that is the question; Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer The slings and arrows of contradictory tax laws, Or to take arms against a sea of IRS auditors And by opposing, end them. To file - to comply, No more; and by comply to say we end The heartache and the thousand natural shocks That 1040 presentations are heir to: 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wish'd. To file, to comply; To comply, perchance to amend - ay, there's the rub: For in that compliance of amending what penalties may come, When we have shuffled off this tax filing season Must give us pause - there's the respect That makes calamity of so long a career."

Husband has a consulting business but for 2022 all he had was expenses; no income (too busy with new baby and cross-country move, but kept up web site and webmail). Does that count towards a filing requirement?

I sent out two copies of an estate income return, Priority Mail, about two weeks ago. One to the executrix and the other to her brother (co-executor). One is in NH and the other in CA. I'm in MA and can drive to the NH location in about 90 minutes. Both packages arrived the same day - within an hour of each other! - a week after mailing.

Way more than $300 - depending on complexity, up to about $600.

We have had two funny adventures, though. 1. Sent an electric toothbrush to the manufacturer for warranty service (non-user-replaceable battery), Priority Mail from MA to VA. It went to Puerto Rico, back to NY, then to Atlanta, then to VA. 2. First class mail years ago. Sent a birthday card to a friend from central MA to a town SE of Boston - about an hour's drive away, a week ahead of the birthday. It arrived three weeks after my friend's birthday, was postmarked Schenectady, and had boot-prints on the envelope. We still chuckle about that one.

A local group here some years ago sent out ~1,000 pieces of 1st class mail to their affinity/mailing list. Less than two dozen ever arrived; the rest were completely lost. They asked for an investigation and were told "we can't find them," and they never showed up in the regional sorting facility (that takes pictures of every piece of mail they process). My guess is they'll show up in some creek or abandoned apartment of an "overworked" mail carrier.

@Margaret CPA in OH and @Jim Oh Bkkr - what about a couple who lives in an unincorporated area? Do they still owe the "city" tax for the city of their official address, even if they're in an unincorporated locale?

How so? I still run QB 2019 on one of my machines and it runs. Won't do bank imports (won't even import downloaded files, curse them) but runs just fine. Do you mean the 64-bit part?

Many thanks to all and I'll check the site (think I already looked at it, but I'll check again) as well as the apportionment schedules/forms. This is a young couple with a passle of kids; mom did some online tutoring a year or so ago but with a new baby (expected then arrived) she did nothing of the kind in 2022.

I've gotten a number of pieces of mail in USPS "body bags" with the tattered remnants of the original item torn, stained, and bedraggled, over the years. Not tax documents, though. I recommend Priority Mail always (and charge for it) but your client might want to file an Identity Theft Affidavit form, just in case.

Personally I have no issue with 64-bit Windows, my argument would be if they turn access to the program off after 3 years.

Hi folks, I have a client who moved to Ohio in Q4 2022, and I haven't done an Ohio return in over 15 years. Are there any gotcha's I need to look out for? From the lists I have he's at least not in a town with local taxes. Any pointers or things to watch for would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks to all who chimed in!

That was my thought, @DANRVAN - take the deductions on the 1041, but leave them off on the state return. Attorney fees, mainly.

One is a Massachusetts 706-equivalent ($1M exclusion in MA not the federal $11+M), and estate income 1041. Sorry that I was not clear, @Sara EA - it was clear in my head!

She's 11 already! Wow; time doesn't merely fly - it evaporates.

Actuaries are the math people without the personality to be economists. Or even undertakers!

What to do? Estate income tax returns, lots of pieces remain to be tidied up before the thing shuts down. The estate expenses were used on the MA state estate tax form as deductions, but there was no federal estate tax. Is there any reason I cannot take these expenses at the federal level for the estate income return? I could see that using the estate expenses on the state's estate income tax form might be considered double-dipping on the expenses, but even then to pay income tax on income that was properly used to pay estate expenses seems odd as well. Had those expenses been paid out before the estate return was filed, I'd have taken them without blinking. Am I over-thinking this? (Yes, I am over-thinking this, and have over-thunked myself into complete confusion!) I've been all over the MassDOR (useless piece of garbage) site and found nothing germane.

Many thanks to all of you!

Yup, and I'm going to make sure I have the last non-subscription version and then turn off all updates. If need be, I'll move to Medlin Accounting or even green ledger sheets. If I have to pay monthly for access to my own data, it's not mine. Ain't happenin' but that's me. You decide what's best for you.

That's the issue. All I see on the CA itemized deduction screen is unreimbursed impairment-related work expenses. These are not for an impairment, just remote work.

Client worked in LA for a good part of the year and made a point of sending me a flyer from Robert Half about a deduction in California for office in home expenses for W2 employees (that can no longer be deducted on federal taxes). Well, I'm looking at the CA data entry items and bless me if I can find any place where this might go. If someone can point me to what CA form it ends up on, perhaps I can find where to enter the information. I'd appreciate that. ATX entry screens won't help, 'cuz I use Drake now. Thanks!

I'm sticking with the desktop version and never moving to the subscription model. I'll go back to green ledger paper first.

I ended up making my favorite apple cake with walnuts. Didn't feel like making pastry for pie crust. It's yummy.

We come into the mix at about 45 seconds, but watch the whole two minutes.