Catherine

Talk to the clients about prior-year K-1's. Perhaps someone has *something* that will give you a clue where to start digging. They may not know anything about those booked loans (for example) but the K-1's may have information that will help you to nudge their memories.

It never really does anyway. I put my foot down years ago that I will NOT half-kill myself to accommodate clients who knew, back on Jan 1, what the deadline was (and this year, had extra time!). They know that, and frankly if they go PAST the deadline, that's their problem, not mine. Anyone who whines is very welcome to go elsewhere. That said, I'll do my best - within reasonable limits that *I* set.

Nope; you can do it for them online. It takes longer to FIND the *&^% fill-in form on the IRS web site than it takes actually to fill it out, but Lion provided the link to get started. The one trick is that you MUST print the page with the EIN before you close it out - once you leave that page you CANNOT get back to it, and then have to wait several weeks for the confirmation letter to arrive.

I believe you need an EIN. How on earth did the employer make the payroll tax payments?

Darlene, My deepest sympathies on the loss of your mom. I hope and pray that the various arrangements can be sorted out. Hang in there, TAKE the time to grieve, and the rest will sort out eventually.

Obliquely related, but this past week we have been INUNDATED not with tire-kickers but with goggle listings type calls. I've learned most of them come through Caller ID showing a town rather than a name, and that answering lets them know the number is live. I've started instead using the speakerphone and humming "Scotland the Brave" or some other tune. The algorithms don't know what to do. Eventually the calls slow down. But I am seriously sick and tired of them this week.

LOVE your humor, @Possi!

Why don't we just skip ahead to '21?

For people who call the IRS a lot, and don't ever want to wait, there is a service called Call EnQ that will connect you in minutes every time. I've put their link below, but for those who won't click links just goggle them. It is $60/month (roughly) so I haven't bothered (my favorite time to call is 7pm Eastern on Friday - they're still open 'cuz it's only 4pm out on the west coast but everyone else in the country has gone/is about to go home). But I've seen it in action and it's pretty slick. Call EnQ

Darlene, I am just seeing this now. I second EVERYTHING Donna/Donnarae/Possi said earlier. Be with mom; spend time with her. You will NEVER regret time spent; you may regret time not spent, for years and year and years. To heck with the tax returns and extensions. If you get to them, fine. If not - and any client screams - you do NOT need clients who waited until the last minute themselves and then got mad at you for spending time with your mom. You just don't. Those people are spiritual poison and you don't need them in your life. Prayers for your mom and your whole family; may the Lord hold you in His hands and give you His peace that passeth all understanding.

Yet another case of the answer hiding until you break down and ask for help. We've all been there.

Magic words! I had an insurance problem (decades ago) that was completely unsolvable until I spoke the miracle phrase "I will call the insurance commission" at which point resolving the problem became trivial and immediate. I have *never* forgotten that.

Yikes!

I figured they did "eeny, meeney, miney, moe" and I just got skipped. LOL.

I do some (and what I've learned from Eric has been super-helpful). I am expecting that in the next year or three we will see a huge uptick in representation work, between the PPP and EIDL and stimulus payments and unemployment and trust fund taxes and missed estimated payments and... and... and... Anyway it looks like it could be bad, and forewarned is forearmed.

I got one a couple years ago and wasn't chosen. So yes, but no.

Reported CPE hours. Judy beat me to posting the next online classes (THANK YOU, @jklcpa for doing that). It was a busy day. They have an interesting attendance scheme, too. Instead of survey questions, they post key words. You get a link at session end to enter those words, and your certificate gets sent within a few minutes of entering the key words. The biggest problem they have is certificate emails ending up in spam filters. With the longer sessions, you get your credit as of the minute they issue the last key word, but Eric will frequently stay on the webinar for any questions people have, and he will stay on until every question has been answered. Today's class went a half-hour over, and I kept listening because the questions were so good!

And I just heard today that Fresno is likely to close again; they had a spike of wuflu cases shortly after re-opening. Better yet: let's CANCEL 2020 and just coast until next year!

For anyone who does ANY kind of representation work, may I recommend the Green & Sklarz (tax attorney) webinars? A lot of the short ones (one and two hour) are FREE, and they have four-hour in-depth webinars on audits, OICs, and more.

I do it manually using the program. Put in current tax year (2019) with day-month. Get depr figure; write down. change date to 2018, get prior-year figure, write down. Rinse and repeat until done; add the results. Annoying, but I can get it done through the program in far less time than it takes me to set up a spreadsheet.

Old perhaps, BulldogTom, but NEVER unworthy!

That will be months. Guess I'll handle it as an amended return. Thanks!

How nice! - NOT. Grrr! Thanks for the warning.

Client whose return was final and submitted over a MONTH ago now sends a new 1099-MISC with over $10K income. Is it possible, this year, even to do a superseded return? Or are we stuck amending, later, (maybe even by e-file)? Now I will take a minute to grumble about these nincompoops - apparently they KNEW about this, and expected it, but said nothing to me and cheerfully accepted the final (now not-final) returns, signed on penalty of perjury, and let me submit them. I think their bill just went UP substantially.

I already have almost all my cpe hours for the year, and have been pondering what else to do. This year there are a slew of excellent short courses all online that I've found really useful. Maybe I'll take a look at the course listing.