schirallicpa

In our little church, we take the collection to the back office right after church, record the donations, add up the cash, and drop the deposit at the bank on the way home. But we are pretty small. I have a couple clients now that are churches and they are putting each and every receipt into quickbooks. Seems terribly cumbersome, and makes for a huge pile of data. I have another excel template that I am trying to get them to use. But excel can turn into a "dragon" that just gets too big too. Also - they do not count the cash or record the donations until Tuesday. So after church, they are putting the collection in a fire-safe box in the church, then taking care of it Tuesday when they come in. They have activities after church and have a hard time finding a private area to count money. And they get a lot of donations. A ton of checks each Sunday. No one wants to take it home on Sunday. (A year ago when I started with these guys, they were putting it in the trunk of the treasurers car til Tuesday!) I know there's a ton of internal control problems here. That's not entirely my concern. I am curious as to any other methods of handling this situation each week. Whats the best way to collect donor's info? Is there a better program than QuickBooks, but as simple as? Any thoughts or suggestions on this would be appreciated.

Has any one else noticed how many id numbers one name can have. (Say - wells fargo for example.....) I wish they would make the look up by number. I'm quicker on the number pad anyway.

Thank you! I'll have to have them look.

If they are in the business of raising and "shipping" out the cows to market, then that's business income, not capital gain. Capital gain comes into play when they are selling off dairy cows that they have had as an investment for their business (when they are going out of business) or sale of older beef cows that they have used to make babies for market. Cull cows.

I have a PA s-corp return, and I haven't done too many of these. This year the efile is failing and wanting the PA revenue #. I have been given an 8 digit number from the client that she uses to log in to the etides system, and it is the same number that I am seeing on their bank stmt descriptions for the debit of sales tax. However, atx ain't liking it. Any ideas?

I think I've got you all beat. If your going to kick out the tenants in the apts upstairs, please keep the heat on so the pipes don't break. We had the upstairs bathroom practically raining on us a couple days ago, and causing me to move files, printers, computers, lamps, chairs etc all out of my office. What a nightmare. Time to find a new office.

If any of you have prepared a 1040 with NOL carried forward, you have an extra little pop-up screen to fill in an explanation before you can efile. The 1041 wants one to, but I don't get a link to one. I tried to put in a blank stmt and that didn't fly. Any suggestions on how to add that?

I had to chime in only because I love your picture. Anyway - I would use 7 years for their purpose. I happen to have a number of folks in the oil industry and they get 5 years. I think you need to consider the type of business as well. 9 times out of 10, it ends up being 179'd on mine anyway.

thanks for your help Pacun. I am still thinking this may drag out a while. keep warm - one more night of cold cold here.

I'm getting rid of payroll. I HATE PAYROLL.

at this point she's still in India and cannot come to US because she has neither a visa or a passport at this point. now I have found out that the client went to the bank to put her name on accounts and they filed a W7. And put 000-00-0000 on the acct. What are the chances this will get all messed up.

My client got married only a few days before the end of the year. To a woman in India - who has never been to the states before and is in the application process for the visa. According to my client, this in going to take about a year. That seems like a very long time, but I am not familiar with the process from the Indian side. Regardless, the ss# is applied for along with the visa. Is there any way around having the SS# for the return? Can she get a TIN for purposes of filing the return for 2013 and then get her SS# later when the visa application process makes it way thru? Haven't dealt with this before. Have had non-res aliens, but with proper ids...............

I just thought it was funny that this is listed as a "hot" topic. It's 2 degrees here:)

These 2 have had me file their taxes for the last couple of years. Now they are in the midst of bitter divorce. He's the main wage earner and has the withholdings. She is a hairdresser and probably hides half of her income. They cannot agree on anything. I told them to suck it up and file joint and split the refund and be done with it. That is not going to happen. She wants to file joint in order to avoid paying tax on her income. He wants for file separate so she has to pay tax on the income. I'm stuck in the middle. Has anyone ever attempted to get a signed agreement with such couples?

Actually - this is exactly what I ended up doing. Thanks.

I know what the publication says. Put it on Sch E. Great. But the k-1 part is on schedule E page 2 and it does not have a place for depletion. So do I just stick it on page 1 all by itself?

Taxpayer has S-corp k-1. Corp is independent oil producer and takes percentage depletion. However, depletion becomes a pass-thru item. But, as coded on k-1, it is not linked. How/ where do i put the deduction?

I'm not surprised its NY not Feds. NY is hungry for money and during the summer months, they are on the prowl for people working for "contractors" and "seasonal vendors". It's like a game lately. Where in NY is he?

I had a return accepted for the last 10 years and it had the wrong date of birth - just discovered this year.

does his financial advisor advise him to put a sticker on his car and write the car off. I'm still arguing this one!

I like to get my fed acks before sending off my states. But everyone is sitting in limbo land!

I spoke with another client of mine who has a real estate license. He told me that the broker cannot have someone else do their selling. I put them on ext. I will deal with them some other day:) My secretary keeps telling me to get rid of them too.

Here's a client I wish I had never taken on. A miriad of issues. And here's one of them: Wife has real estate brokerage license. Husband does the actual selling. NYS only lets commission go to the licensed broker. So she would have a Sch C with - say - $50,000 of commissions offset with a handful of expenses. But she "pays" her husband. (Oops - no 1099). So they would zero out her Sch C showing fees paid to him. Then he would have his own schedule C, which happens to be offset with other self-employed losses. Doesn't sound kosher to me. But, then again, I have clients that have schedule C's and have a payroll with their spouse on it. But obviously, in that case, they pay tax. In this case, they are avoidling tax. Not sure why he doesn't have the license.

I'll be sure and ask about the tips. thanks. ps - how come I never get a tip?

Wondering if any one has a standard letter that they use to tell their clients they are done with them.