Catherine

Our letters say March 15 for ALL docs in house.

Well. Mother of an existing client comes to us because she moved, then sold her house. Duplex; lived in half and rented the other half. Moved in 2016, wanted to sell while she could still exclude gain as primary residence. We have dates of residence, date of moving, dates and costs for various renovations (three in all; one for each unit and one overall). All makes sense so far. The ONLY depreciation on the prior-year return ("professionally" prepared) is a couple hundred bucks from a small renovation in 2007. Whimper. Form 3115 to claim all the missed depreciation - which then needs to be recaptured on the sale? I almost think I should split the sale, and do half as sale of primary residence and half as the sale of business property. Or am I over-thinking this? Help!

My very best wishes for a full and speedy recovery!

REALLY double-check the totals. We had one case of a company changing payroll service providers; old one issued W2 for half year, new one issued W2 for full year. Major, major problems for MANY people.

Clients and thinking - what is this combination you speak of? I have not heard of this before! These two really were winners. Good grief!

What Jack and Hahn (and others) said. Get the documentation NOW. Sure, send it in now (likely they won't notice it). Heck, I'd even write the letter now (or at least make notes, as you presented for us here), while it's all fresh in your mind. When (not if) the cp2000 shows up, you'll have everything for rebuttal.

We see delays due to weather. The steady inflow dries up completely the day before, of, and after a storm, as people are preparing, enduring, and digging out. Drop-offs are a bit behind last year but if we check the spreadsheet you can clearly see the missing three-day chunks.

We use the bank-level security client file portal that comes with our web site. The vendor is CPA Site Solutions. We also have folks who send us password protected zip files (sometimes sending those through the portal), and of course those who take pix with their cameras and email or text those, with no thought to blanking out ssn's. We tell those clients to delete the attachment (after we've saved it on our drives! - that are encrypted, btw).

I've seen a couple of those in the last few years. The clients always call, and we always laugh about it.

A partnership is a venture for profit. An arrangement merely to share expenses is NOT a for-profit endeavor, and need not file a partnership return. If they have no income, it's good to track the payments they each make as that adds to their basis for the eventual sale (one hopes, for gain) on the land. But I don't see this being a partnership and requiring a 1065. I have a client who insists on filing a return every year for a "partnership" to share expenses with a buddy, with whom he co-owns a small plane. He does it himself; all zeros. Whatever.

Warn them ahead of time that the DC computers are completely bolluxed up, and waste time and money sending letters about $1 - $3 discrepancies that the computers themselves create out of thin air?

sometimes they do respond to public shame

Standard accounting answer: it depends. Can't exceed taxable income or DNI. Capital gains are attributed to corpus. But if there is taxable or DNI income to cover it, I don't read where you cannot use the election for gains. I could also be wrong.

All our software rounds. Agency software truncates.

I have SO much sympathy for the poor programmers! Not only do they need to understand how this is SUPPOSED to work (with all the special situations, phase-outs, cut-offs, and more), but they then have to CODE that for the feds - and THEN wait for the states to figure out what they want to do, so they can code the state portions. All the while, we are agitating for them to finish so we can file our returns! I would offer to share my whiskey, but I think they'd drink my supply dry in a nanosecond.

If there is anything taxable it goes on Line 21 (or whatever this year's equivalent is - one of the sub-schedules).

Congratulations on having a governor to sign the bill! I think?

Gee, here I thought I was the only one to occasionally attribute something to the wrong spouse, or leave something out! (not) I even build in a three-day window between completing a return and reviewing it before printing; I've found that if I review too soon, I see what I *expect* to see, not what's there. Still I occasionally miss something. One year, forgot the clients' mortgage interest (or was it real estate taxes... either way, they paid the two separately and I forgot one of them). Of course, those amounts were not IN the papers the clients sent me, but it was still my fault. Yes, it was - because I *allowed* them to rush me (they wanted to leave for vacation and file before leaving) so I missed it totally. The difference, months later when we amended? $74 refund, federal only. And they were so ticked I lost them as clients. Considering how ticked (and nasty) they were and how hard they had pushed me to rush to finish, they left about a millisecond before I would have fired their behinds. Go easy on yourself, Possi!

I'll chime in and say to follow what @Hahn1040 is recommending. I have had great success in the past in claiming a portion of the 529 distribution as taxable income, freeing up the full AOC credit for the parents. Yes, they pay a tiny bit in tax (only earnings, not basis, are taxable), there's no penalty, and a credit - especially refundable! - beats not claiming income as taxable nine times out of ten.

Thanks for the reminder, Judy!

As if we ALL have not done that exact same thing from time to time. I am convinced that it is the asking of the questions, in print/online, that jars the memory enough in these cases. But the memory retrieval is not activated until after you hit "send."

As if we ALL have not done that exact same thing from time to time. I am convinced that it is the asking of the questions, in print/online, that jars the memory enough in these cases. But the memory retrieval is not activated until after you hit "send."

As if we ALL have not done that exact same thing from time to time. I am convinced that it is the asking of the questions, in print/online, that jars the memory enough in these cases. But the memory retrieval is not activated until after you hit "send."

You also have MY sympathies, @JRS, that those fires affected you. Plus I hope that Drake gets the fix in place quickly!

They'll get the janitor in to sign it, or something.