Catherine

Tom has it exactly right. Document F&C. Were the expenses business specific is key, but exclusivity isn't all-or-nothing. For example, it's ok if the letterhead can later be used for grocery lists, but that's clearly not the purpose of letterhead. 

Sounds like you should talk to an insurance agent who sells whole life, term life, and variable life (including universal) policies. See if they can point you to any information sources.

I do have one contact who sells insurance; not sure if he sells life policies. If you have no one you already know, I could ask him. 

I certainly would never go for a pricier package. I'm trying to retire.

We put the requirement to file in the engagement letter, more clearly than past years' one-sentence fbar notice. But we won't do them (nor the fbar; just the 8938s). Preparer penalties can be vicious on anything to do with foreign reporting. I have my areas of specialty, and this ain't one of them.

Even with well-established clients, if one sends me an email with only an attachment and no verbiage, I contact the client via a new email and ask if they sent me something, and what it was they sent, before I'll open it. Also with personal emails. Took one of my cousins a couple of years to (finally!) get the hint and tell me "these are some pictures I took" or "here's a link to an article on topic X" with the original emails. 

Yes, he deserves credit for following her wishes. It was a hefty chunk-o-change, too. 

On 1/29/2024 at 11:11 PM, DANRVAN said:

Unfortunately sounds like son was acting without any sound legal advice.  Most likely it could have been resolved before son made the donation from the estate funds.

Ah, it gets better! The attorney told the son (or so son reports) that the paperwork to direct the custodian to send $X to the church does qualify as a written directive. I've asked him to get me a copy of that email. 

I'd contact Verifyle support on this one, for sure.

Interesting. I have never, in more than 25 years, seen the IRS' direct debit fail. Except for when the client provided the numbers for a closed account!

Well, yeah, and I tell them all the time, but I can't make them listen!

In her case, she hung on literally for years (incurable cancer) because her husband's health was failing and he needed someone to advocate for him (dementia, among other issues). She outlasted him barely seven weeks. No energy, time, or mobility to deal with anything but the absolute essentials for several years beforehand. I tried. I really did. As it was, I'm still working on the dregs of the 2022 returns. We got 2020 & 2021 filed the day before she passed on. 

The IRS will take $$$ out of a live account. They don't ask for a name, and don't care a dingleberry who is paying, as long as they are getting paid. I've seen parents pay for kids, kids for parents, one couple who paid tax due for a dear friend having a hard year... as long as the account is live, and there are sufficient funds in it, the IRS is happy.

I tell my clients to use a phone scanner app like CamScanner (or any of the others) and not to send pictures because they can't be read reliably. However, I have one lady who keeps sending me heic files. Adobe Acrobat reads them just fine (not sure about the Reader). Click the file, right-click and choose "open with" Adobe.  

One client would send me everything stapled to a fare-thee-well, until the year (after multiple warnings) I charged him a $50 staple removal fee, so named on the bill. I'm tempted to do likewise with photos of documents.

From my memory, there was a large-ish 1099-R paid to her estate. 

45 minutes ago, BulldogTom said:

It was clearly her intent and if she knew the trustee was going to deny her wishes, she could have amended her will.

She was dying; there were only a couple of weeks between the attempt to get the distribution for her church and when she passed on. That's why the issue with the custodian could not be fixed; she was already gone before it was known they didn't like the way the paperwork was filled out.

I'll check with her son to see where the funds were paid to; I know the contribution came out of the estate accounts. That could be counted as money not paid to him. 

15 hours ago, DANRVAN said:

Not interested, this forum works just fine.

However, it has been useful to have the facebook group to see or to report what's going on if there is a problem with the forum. I think that's why it was set up; so there would be an alternative just in case.

ALWAYS go up the food chain to the manager. They are usually far more reasonable. And the auditor is required to give you the manager's name and full contact info. 

@NECPA in NEBRASKA retire now; people have time to find someone else. Just say "personal issues" or "health issues in the family" and anyone who doesn't respect that you would not want to have as a client anyway! 

If you do not want to retire, hike the price as much as you need and then $50 more. Your family is more important.

You can also use one of the third party services to e-file, like EFileMyForms, for you and your clients. Just pick "efile only" as the option. It's only about $5 per form and gets it DONE for you. Then you fix the ID.me issue at your leisure - or at least, not under a nasty hard and looming deadline.

Facts and circumstances. RC is a big issue, yes. However, it's not a huge issue for a small S-corp without big distributions. A corp in its first few years may well be just barely scraping by. In which case I'd look at IRA limits based on spousal earnings rather than S-corp earnings. No one can put all their $ into an IRA unless they have a working spouse with a good job - or are taking distributions instead of wages. For the latter, you have an RC issue for sure. 

The only good thing about call support for Drake is that the phones are generally answered within a few rings, and sent to the right department right away. Therefore one would not get the royally-ticked-off-by-phone-tree calls. 

Still, I'd give this a hard pass. I have easier ways to hurt myself.

Hi folks, 

I have a lovely grey area. Elderly lady made a church the beneficiary of her IRA so they would get $$ after she passed on. This change was submitted to them very shortly before she died. Custodian refused to honor it (due to their delay in processing the request, as can be seen from her date of death and the date the papers were submitted). Instead her son gave the amount she wanted them to have from the estate funds to replace what they did not get from her IRA.

Does that count as a per-will/per-trust/per-paperwork donation, or not? Only those things called for in the will or trust is allowed as charitable deduction - but she did everything she could to get a distribution from her IRA, and the custodian mucked it up. 

Opinions?

On 1/23/2024 at 4:20 PM, Christian said:

His broker's back office advised his advisor that for legal liability reasons the code could not be changed. Go figure.

I'd get that in writing (email, at least) as proof that the client tried to get the code changed, and the custodian refused to cooperate.

I wonder what is going on with the computers that these letters are being generated in the first place. Please report back!

Gee, I didn't get one. Or, not yet.