Catherine

Laphroig Lore with one ice cube, please.

Mine is six digits with two leading zeros; now I feel like a newbie!

For small jobs (not yours) Ship 'N Shred will come fetch and then send you a certificate of destruction. For the larger groups - I'd look for one where the truck comes to you and you can see them dump it into the grinder in front of you.

Absolutely! But we also TEASE each other. Mercilessly, sometimes. We all love you, @FDNY, and would never rat you out. Charge those clients enough to pay for that wine!

Told my partners; they laughed out loud. Before, though, I had warned them this was NEVER to be told to clients!

I do as well. A client needs an overwhelming reason to need it before I'll cave in. This has happened possibly twice in over twenty years.

Here's hoping she doesn't read our forum! Your secret would be out! By the way, have we discussed the cost of keeping your secret, here?

Plus in some areas the first real estate tax bill will show the assessment for buildings, improvements, and land. Or at least total and buildings, and subtraction will get you land value.

Or a simple note "Brought to you by YOUR personal legis-vermin 'representative'. Remember in November!"

Thanks, Lynn!

At this point you'll need to call tech support. I haven't used ATX in years and no longer know the ins and outs of the software. This definitely sounds like a software issue. Alternative: mail it in. Tell the client it's a quirk with MA this year (which it may well be, frankly).

Anyone here have experience with taxes in Puerto Rico? One client is considering moving there and I've never dealt with PR taxation.

I like the etymology, and I also like oddball or arcane words. A recent favorite is "casuistry" which comes in WAY more handy than one would have thought. Go look it up for yourselves and see!

Not germane in this case, but in NH only the part of the fee payable to the locality is deductible. The part for the state isn't. Your trivia for today...

I don't use ATX any more so if it's ATX specific I can't help. However, it looks like you are only reporting the MA corporation amounts and not total-from-everywhere amounts of interest and dividends. MA doesn't accept that. You have to report ALL income, and then you get a percentage of deductions based on how much total income is from MA. So I'd check to see why the discrepancy between total and MA int/div amounts. See if fixing that makes your problem go poof.

Thank you. Sheesh. This Experian crap is the credit bureau version of chronic lower back pain!

NATP it is, then. Thanks!

I have NEVER seen a client do this! I've done it with/for a client, on occasion. But a client, of their own volition, taking this step?! I needed that laugh, @Evan S. Golar.

Client owns a house in Hawaii that is rented out through various sources. This house is built on solidified lava, and ALL water leaving the house has to be caught and pumped away by truck. In 2017, she needed to put in a new catchment system to deal with all household water. Considering what it needs to do and how remote the property is, it was remarkably inexpensive. What depreciation do I use? I can find farm info (this isn't a farm), rental property info (not really part of the house), land info (maybe the closest but I dunno - and how does solid rock qualify as "land" except I guess it does), appliances (nope!) - nothing really seems to fit what this is and what it does for the property. Section 179 won't help as there was no profit for 2017. Help, please!

And there is not enough resolution in the image to tell for sure, one way or 'tother!

Whee hah; you've got a good one here. Shall we assume the amount that is being denied makes it worth all the trouble, AND that the client can now pay you for your time? Cuz if they won't, stop now. You were told once you weren't needed; nothing more should be done without payment. All that said, if you were to take it on you would need a complete timeline etc. Copies of decrees can be obtained from court, and a landlord should have a copy of the old lease. An explanation of mailing address versus residential address should be acceptable. I know plenty of people who have a separate mailing address - frequently so that mail and/or packages can be held where they won't be stolen. They should accept that (if it's true) especially if client can show that all/most/much important mail was sent elsewhere. A news report of mailbox vandals in the area will support the claim. Make sure you'll get paid, make sure the full story is one you can support with documentation, if so then it may be worth your time. But whatever you figure it's worth, double it - get paid up front as retainer with a forfeit clause in engagement letter if the client stops providing information to you.

So here's a sample of what happens when my husband is tired and his brain starts in on random associations. We came home this evening, and apropos of absolutely nothing on this earth, he said to me, "I just realized there is no International Fig Line."

I had a client who tracked this non-existent bad debt. I ended up excluding it from the P&L as a specially-named report. Everything else was fine; this person just wanted to know if the number of deadbeats were staying steady or not.

I had a client, years ago, who told me one year that he had not reported over $200K of foreign income (consulting), not knowing he was supposed to report it. It was a closed year. We filed an amended return for the closed year, and enclosed a check for the tax due (over $80K IIRC). The IRS sent the check back, saying the equivalent of 'closed year; we won't look at it.'

She can only write off bad debt if she has taken it as income (as in accrual accounting). If she's cash-basis, here "write-off" is simply NOT taking as income funds she is owed but never got. I've shown this to clients who *insist* on seeing it as "other (owed) income" with a "bad debt" line - all in the "other expenses" section. So it zeros out, but you "took" the debt. That is *only* for clients whose tiny brains simply cannot fathom that the can't take as "bad debt" money they never received but also never claimed. If her SE business runs on accrual, then yes she claimed it as income and bad debt goes on the Sch C. Because it offsets the SE tax already paid on income she doesn't have.