Catherine

My mother-in-law had a SEVEN-DAY to-the-minute pre-Thanksgiving schedule. Starting from cleaning the refrigerator to make room for it all, grocery lists for serving by number of people, then when to take the turkey out of the freezer to thaw in the fridge, to when pie crusts were prepared, then pie fillings, side dishes, stuffing, and more. She even had charts, on grid paper, comparing roasting times by weight for stuffed versus unstuffed turkeys, plus suggestions for coping with the chaos and dealing with leftovers. It was truly astounding. But this also pre-dated Excel, so it was all on 5x8 index cards, plain paper, and grid paper. 31-page pdf from her paper records. Does that still count?

(Oldy but goody, adjusted for clean speech - extrapolate on your own) Choose a new password: potato Sorry, password must contain at least 8 letters. boiled potato Sorry, password must contain at least one number. 1 boiled potato Sorry, password cannot contain spaces 50bleepingboiledpotatoes Sorry, password must contain capital letters. 50BLEEPINGboiledpotatoes Sorry, capital letters must not be consecutive. IwillShove50BleepingBoiledPotatoesUpYourPosterior,IfYouDoNotGiveMeAccessImmediately Sorry, password must not contain punctuation. NowIamSeriouslyGettingPissedOffIwillShove50BleepingBoiledPotatoesUpYourPosteriorIfYouDoNotGiveMeAccessImmediately Sorry, you can't change your password to a password that has already been used with this account. Choose a new password :

I have used it for years and like it a lot. Send a PM if you want details, but in general I've found it very easy to use. PDF copies are now available instantly, too. Years ago when I first started using them the PDFs were available the next day.

UMass Tax School still exists, too - but I don't recommend it. It used to be fabulous, and I went every year. Yes, there were old fogies sleeping and snoring (one guy always amazed me that he never fell off his chair!). The best ever Ethics class I ever attended was at one of those; all about the grey areas and when trying to help a client pushes the preparer, all unwittingly, against those limits. I learned SO much from that one class and it has really stuck with me. Unfortunately, the man running it retired and it was taken over by a self-important bimbo who made it all about her. It was awful, and useless, and annoying, and I stopped going after the first year she ran it. She had been one of their "featured speakers" for a couple of years beforehand, and I always gave her the worst reviews and written complaints. She was truly atrocious.

If you do this regularly, they do sell pre-punched paper that would at least relieve you of one long hard slog of a task!

I have Mercer as agent for E&O. Switched away from Hartford some years ago when Mercer had better coverage limits for less than Hartford. They shop out to different companies; currently covered by Carolina Casualty. Cyber is separate through ERO Cyber Security.

I've seen them demand - and have mailed to them with the letter requesting it - Form 1310 FOUR times before they finally get off their fat duffs and ACT on it. It's as if the entire agency has a grudge against Form 1310 and orders from On High to stall, delay, obfuscate, pretend it wasn't received, and re-demand it. Not new; I've watched this recurring debacle for twenty-five years at least. It's one of my biggest complaints about the Service.

This one I've not seen before. First time I had to log in using ID dot me to get to EFTPS. Had to try twice after getting through the ID send-you-a-code step. First time said no record. Okay, fine. It's possible to mis-type a password. It's even possible when copying from my secure pw manager; all that would need is to accidentally get a space as well. Second time worked. Got to the end, and then it tried to tell me that I was "not authorized" to pay Form 941 tax deposits - for my very own single employee for my very own business; not for any client. I've been paying these taxes for well over a decade, and have never seen this error until ...gee, the first time I have to log in with ID dot me. I'm suspicious. I was able to pay anyway, on my second attempt, as I got a "continue" anyway choice (the other two were abandon the payment, and edit the payment). Anyone else see anything like this? Or am I the only lucky one?

I don't do tons of representation, but the information I've gotten from these has been enormously helpful. I've staved off more in-depth audits, I've known exactly how to respond to some of the stranger letters that clients get, I've known more what and how to ask about oddities I see in paperwork. Further, I know exactly when something starts to look like more than I want to handle, and who to contact in that case.

My recommendations would be: Have the client make any payment either by check with coupon, or using DirectPay. Then e-file in January. I had to paper-file a prior-year decedent return after the SSA shut down the SSN and the e-file was rejected. State already dealt with it, but we've heard nary a peep from the feds.

For me, I'd just annotate the return with the changes made, and why, rather than amend. Else the IRS is going to be inundated with these no-tax-change amended returns, and in general they don't want to be bothered with amendeds unless tax change is greater than $50. YMMV.

Good to know about Square. I do like to have authority for docs with clients. A few are now out of date - thanks for the reminder to get updated signatures from those clients.

I've done a bunch online and will be at the NE IRS Representation Conference Nov 30-Dec 1. I think they still have online "seats" available. It's always fabulous. https://irsrepconference.com/

QBO does not allow you to delete accounts; it's one of the more horrid aspects of that particular abomination. Best you can do is make them inactive, and configure all reports never to display inactive accounts.

Are you looking online, or do you have the actual document? Around here, a lot of the older records (and yes, in many towns 1999 counts as "older" for records) the online database transactions are recorded with dates and names but no prices.

I just thought it was a hoot. Yes, Freddie was better.

Very well done. Search youtube if you don't want to click on it.

Only time I've seen a return rejected was when both spouses died (within six weeks of each other) and return was attempted to be filed, by executor, after the SSA had locked both SSNs. Return with one surviving spouse should go through. If not, I'd try swapping who is t/p and who is spouse, before bugging a widow. As for signatures, he signed his permission while living. It counts.

I have never seen the IRS honor a direct deposit request for an estate. They always send checks. Furthermore, while Form 1310 is supposedly transmitted with a return, it needs to be attached as a pdf. I don't know if the IRS servers don't see/accept it, but if it isn't added as a pdf, the first thing you'll get is a letter demanding a Form 1310 be sent in.

sent you a PM just now

Tell us something we shouldn't have been able to guess. It was only a matter of time!

Under normal circumstances, yes. But these aren't normal. If there is any provable history of withheld tax (from an ancient SSA-1099 or 1040 listing), I'd use the same percentage. Older folks by and large don't change withholding percentages, but let them coast for years. I had one older couple that was having way TOO much tax withheld from one retirement account, and they got 5-figure refunds every year. I reminded them for nearly a decade to cut that back, and they never did. Dealing with a retirement custodian is usually fare easier than dealing with the government, so there you go.

On a similar theme, my mother-in-law (deceased for quite a few years now) kept copies of all her tax returns. I have two framed (in one frame) hanging in my home office, from 1942 & 1943. With the Victory Bond coupons attached! Yes, her full ssn is on the returns, but that ssn was locked nearly a decade ago.

I have a client who still holds some stock gifted to him by his grandmother, who bought it in the 1930's. He still has her basis.... on a long enough time scale (with mergers, acquisitions, stock splits, and more), the per-share basis approaches, but never quite reaches, zero.

Bumping this one more time. I got my final plan some time ago, and it fulfills all the requirements, is completely customized to my business & needs, and he is very quick and responsive.