Catherine

You could make yourself a 2nd preparer, using (or dropping) a middle initial.

Keep in mind, folks, that while local hard drive backup is good and cheap and reliable, you have to take the drives home with you every night - or one break-in, broken pipe, or fire could destroy all your records including all your backups!

An amazingly wonderful peaty single malt Scotch whiskey. Think Laphroaig with a little less bite.

If there are no sales/redemptions, then there is no taxable item to report.

I was recognized but had to upload W2s by hand rather than in a text file. AccuWage kept finding "errors" in Medlin's files and I didn't want to chance it. Fortunately I only had a handful to do - filling them out by hand, online, was faster than fighting their submission system. Not complaining about Medlin, either - most likely some oddball glitch.

Someone once said that if you can't stand in front of is and defend it, it's not yours. I will go back to green ledger paper before I put data on the cloud (except as second backup).

I use Acronis to back up on-site, and iDrive to back up to the cloud. Acronis does an incremental backup nightly and full backup weekly. iDrive backs up all new files to the cloud nightly. Carbonite requires you to choose each and every folder you want backed up. Both Acronis and iDrive default to all folders, but allow you to choose any you don't want backed up (mostly temp files). At some point I may switch to using Acronis' online backup system, just to have it all the same, but I've been very happy with iDrive. Some years ago I used Mozy and that was also set as a daily backup. Strange thing was, sometimes it only took a minute or two, and other times it took hours and did slow my computer down on those occasions. They could never explain the difference, and I did not like that. They may well have changed since then, so I would not discount them because of my experience over 5 years ago. Hope this helps.

Trusts are usually "residents" (the term is "situs") in the state where it was originated and signed. Not required to be the same state as any trustee, or any business activity. Sounds like an Illinois trust with IL situs. Also sounds like filing is required in Georgia for the business activity there.

How could I have forgotten the chocolate?!?!

I keep on top of small everyday shredding in the office. Fro the big once or twice a year purge, I pack it into boxes and call Ship'N'Shred. They pick up, shred, and send me a Certificate of Destruction the next day. They will also do hard drives and other media, too, but I've never tried those.

I sent them to my employee as a pdf, because there's no wall here to hold them. It's either windows, bookcases, or file cabinets.

None of the online backup services should slow down your computer, if you set up for once (or even twice) a day backup, rather than continual. PC Magazine gives high ratings to Mozy. iDrive. Acronis. OneBackup.

Whether correct or not, at least we can be reasonably sure they won't disagree with it! Whereas if their figures are wrong, we all know we'll be the ones having to prove to the service that they are wrong. Ugh. Ibuprofen, acetaminophen, CBD tincture, red wine, and a brand-new bottle of Lagavulin 16 year. That's what it's going to take!

More than they already squeal, about anything and everything.

Congratulations, Terry! I used to be an NAEA (and state affiliate) member but let them lapse after dithering for some years. Should have let them lapse earlier. Networking was nice enough for some years but overall rather limited. Never felt I got my money's worth from the membership. Verifyle Pro is a free benefit - but I can buy it for 1/3 the price of the NAEA. Try it with the discount for a year and see if you like it. If not, then drop it. I've found NATP has some excellent discounts including their CPE. Also if you want to do any representation, Tax Rep LLC (Eric Green's group) does frequent free 1-and 2-hour online classes. I'll be doing a freebie on innocent spouse issues with them this Friday. (Highly recommended to anyone who does any representation.) I also used Gleim for prep, back in the day. 2003, I think it was. Maybe 2004 (not later than that). Two days, paper only, once a year only. I studied for six weeks, passed all four first try. Yeah, got a bit freaked when some others said it was their 3rd or 4th try. Best things about Gleim were 1. Learning not to re-think: answer once, move on, don't look back - that 2nd answer is usually wrong. 2. Recognizing the questions where answers would not be presented properly (multiples were right, none were right, too poorly worded to determine a right answer, etc). Maybe those are fixed now.

Just heard from a friend tonight who called about his 2019 refund (not received). Filed on paper just as all the craziness was hitting. His return is in they system, and the agent could see it. Apparently one page's scan didn't go quite right but all info was there (super simple return, a 1099-R and a 1099-INT; refund less than $60) but she could not release the refund for some reason he did not understand but had to do with two departments trading the return back and forth between them, electronically. I mean, really?

One EA I knew who specialized in representation (I think she's retired now) used to put in all her offers for $1,000 to get them rejected fast. She said there was never any real negotiation or knowledgeable IRS people on the cases until you got to appeals, so why not skip the first level as fast as possible and get to a proper settlement officer. Not sure if that's really the case, and not sure I'd be comfortable trying that, but I can see the sense in it.

The key items for me are: Kludgey moving from one screen to another; very slow and clunky and non-obvious. Plus you can't go back to where you were; you have to go back to menus and re-navigate. Very much worse than QB desktop multiple windows. Reports are very much more limited in QBO. No auto-fill function. No adding on-the-fly in number fields - e.g., multiple items on a bill. No splitting transactions until *after* they have been recorded. That's what comes to mind off the top of my head. Ever work on the same year program with QB desktop for Windows and QB desktop for Mac? And the Mac version felt like it was four rev's behind and treated by the developers the same way they'd treat Weird Uncle Ed at Thanksgiving, who smells a little off, tells sketchy inappropriate stories, and no one wants to sit near him? That's how QBO feels to use.

I disagree. If another return was filed, *that* one is the one to flag. Not the one where everything matches the IRS master file going back 10+ years. Going back one year, sure. Two years, maybe. Ten or more? Nonsense. Incompetent programming.

Be glad you found out before filing! We had a similar case some years ago (before the entire IRS system collapsed, fortunately) and did not find out until the CP2000 letter to the client demanding tax and underreporting penalties etc on basically his entire income a second time. (Payroll provider switch was in November, if memory serves.) The IRS accepted a letter from the employer stating this was an error and that the old payroll company was going to issue W-2C forms for $0. For hundreds of employees... ouch.

We refuse any new clients who want QBO and do not support it; I detest it with a deep and sincere loathing. That said, I do pass along subscriptions at my cost for several clients who insisted (they have special circumstances, and in-house bookkeepers who know QBO).

This. I also run reports, but slightly different ones from what Tom says he runs. Mainly to the same purpose - but my WIP spreadsheet answers (in more detail than QB) the questions he runs his reports for.

I can understand this if there are address changes, name changes - or heck, even bank changes. But suddenly demanding proof of identity from people who have the same name, same address, same ssn, same bank, same frimping everything, as for the last decade - jeezel louizel, that's just bone-deep stupid. All my clients who have gotten those letters - except for one, who moved - have had no IRS system changes for a decade or longer.

It was just in a promo from some vendor and I already deleted the email. Hoping it's right, but I wouldn't put $$ on it yet.

Fair, as applied to taxation rules and regs. Strange but intriguing concept!