Tax Prep by Deb

Can someone tell me how to enter the dates clients left California to go to Oregon? CA calculates income by days spent in CA, but I can't find any place in Drake to input the info. Any help will be greatly appreciated!

Just had a situation similar. Parents specifically said they would not be claiming son so Medicaid in California would cover him. It was one of those situations were they thought they were getting something for nothing but ended up losing out on a big education credit. I would file the deadbeat son as if he could be claimed by someone else and just don't claim him on the mom's return. The rule is even if no one does claim him, if he could be claimed he cannot claim self.

Thank You! I will give that a try. I tried just about everything else!

Any Idea how to do this in Drake Software?

Prior to death it was a revocable living trust. From what I have been told the only assets at time of death the trust had was stocks. The stocks were not sold by the trust but was split up and distributed to each person listed on the trust. I'm still looking everything over, but was hoping for some guidance on starting.

This kind of, sort of, should be, a rather simple trust. At least that is what I am hoping for. My client is the trustee of a trust (belonged to his mother who passed away 02/2018) and has already got the tax ID number for the trust (Yah). To start with the preparer who prepared the taxes last year has already entered her date of death on the 2017 tax return (she died before it was filed). I have some documents that came under her tax id number, (social security, pension, and some investment accounts). My thinking is I need to prepare a personal return for her for all income up to date of death correct? That's the easy part, most of the income listed on her ss number for her investment accounts are showing transactions after date of death. Do I report based on the tax ID number (keeping all income together under that ID) or do I separate out based on date of death and report everything after death on the trust (even though the tax ID numbers will be different)? Any help will be greatly appreciated! Deb!

My auto correct is going crazy! I meant to say my client who is a single member LLC is a smog shop with less than 250,000 gross income. He hasn't hit the magic number yet so only had to pay the 800.

I keep telling my clients that they are not cheap. One is a smog shop smock. So far he hasn't but the magic number but I'm sure his day is coming.

If income is over 250,000 They will owe both. One is the corporate tax and the other I believe they call a fee.

Question, I have several clients who are full time students this year but who have worked during the year and are now providing more than 1/2 of their own support therefore not able to be claimed as a dependent on their parents tax return. This year I am using Drake, so I am a little not sure of myself when it comes to California EIC. I know that under federal rule, the fact that the child is a full time student, lives with parent, is the right age, ect…. can qualify the parent for EIC so therefore (especially being they are under 25) not eligible for EIC, however the good state of California changed the age to 18, and I can not find in their rules at all the stipulation that the child cannot qualify someone else for the credit, only that they can not be claimed as a dependent. So Drake wants to give them California EIC. Any other California preparers running into this?

That is the case. I actually have two of these situations were the kids do very well in school and have a great amount in scholarships. Both come from low income families, so even in the past the Kiddie Tax wouldn't be much different between either child or parent, but with the new way it is being taxed it is hitting these kids hard.

Yes I have the actual account transactions and they are matching to the 1098-T. Even with the 12000 standard deduction the taxes are over 4,000. I guess it is what it is, but honestly the only way I would have ever caught this was Drake flagged it. I used ATX last year and nothing, but looking over the instructions for the kiddie tax form it has been this way for quite some time. I will have to look at last years and see if it would make a difference. I really don't believe so because to be honest with you the kid makes more in scholarships than his parents do working.

I need a second set of eyes on this one. I have a client who is a student at UCLA. He is very smart and as a result has scholarships that way exceed his tuition. His scholarships and grant is $36,107 his tuition is $11,754. So he has taxable scholarships of $24,353. In addition he has a W2 for 3,219. Because the taxable scholarship isn't counted as support for himself, his parents are still able to claim him, thus causing a form 8615 situation by which they want over 4,000 in taxes. Am I understanding this correctly? Did I mess up last year and not figure Kiddy Tax for him based on the scholarship be non earned income? He was in the same situation last year, however I didn't do the Kiddie Tax Return thinking that non earned income was basically interest dividends, investments ect… I never would have though of scholarships in that classification (he worked hard, in my mind earned it). What say you? Am I missing something?

Never mind I found it!

I can not clear an error for e-file on a single member llc California. It tells me the phone number of officer must be present but I can't seem to find a way to make it flow to the 568. Can someone point me to the right direction?

Drake does it! I switched this year and love it!

I have a client that is in kind of a unique position. Never been a problem in the past, but those kids grow up and start working and put all kinds of wrinkles in the norm! Client's son turned 18 and got a job after graduation. His income is such that he provided more than 1/2 of his own support. (his income went up, parents went down). So I am filing him single and not a dependent on someone else's return. Because of his age, residency, ect… he still qualifies his parent for EIC correct? Support is not a requirement for EIC and he meets all the other test, I should be able to file him as mentioned above and yet his parent should still be able to claim him for EIC correct?

I have that problem but uninstalling a re-installing didn't work. ATX did show me a work around and it only happens when I first open ATX.

Yes the market place does have HDHPs. I currently have one. I know it is so tricky. My insurance guy is always calling me for info, and then when I start working on it from my end, I call him. We have a wonderful working relationship. He deals a lot with Covered California and it is a constant thorn in his side, but to give him credit where credit is due, every client I send to him and they allow him to get their insurance is always dead on when it comes to the end of the year calculations. He is so good at what he does that I almost beg my clients to go to him and never try to get insurance on their own. Those that choose to do it themselves are the ones that have mega troubles at the end of the year.

I'm replying off the top of my head but I believe if I remember correctly it is AGI then certain non taxable income added such as the non taxable portion of social security. I work closely with an insurance agent and he would tell me what income level would be needed. Don't forget too that if you need to reduce the income a little a contribution to an IRA would work as well as contributions to an IRA if the policy is a high deductible plan.

Don't forget the 500 dependent credit new this year. I would keep him on his parents return and file him as a dependent on someone else return just to get him a refund if he has one coming.

Sorry that it had to affect your return at all. Those fires were horrible, hope you and your family are OK otherwise.

Good catch however that is rarely the case. I do drill clients (Yes drill, I keep them talking until I feel they are telling me the truth) and in all my cases they are either their kids or no relationship at all.

Not unless her kids are his kids. If only hers they do not qualify him for head of household.

I kind of think like you said, mine was part of a test batch. Usually I don't transmit early but new to Drake this year I wanted to check out the process. I am amazed at the speed of Drake! Thank you for the tips!. Now if I could figure out the mayor's thing, and how to quickly select what I want to print.