HV Ken

Last night, I had an "Oh crap" moment and realized I forgot an extension! I came back in the office after midnight(Eastern), generated and transmitted the extension. Thankfully, when the acks finally came through, I was relieved to have it accepted.

So my question is - when is the real cutoff when extensions can no longer be generated and/or transmitted? If I wasn't going to be able to even generate the extension at 12:10a, I was going to change the time zone on my computer and try again. Perhaps the cutoff is based on the latest US timezone's midnight? Anybody know?

Great idea to start this topic. I am looking forward to seeing how others handle the questions you asked. We have to make some changes as well. I am jealous of those that were having a party on 4/15 - I was e-filing right up until midnight. Exhausted!

Michael - time for you and me to team up! Would be an awesome duo!!

Hey KC - where on earth did you get that? Looks vaguely familiar to me.

New client, will be filing MFS for 2013. Has no idea if the other person will itemize or not, and seems like they are not even on speaking terms and will be divorcing in 2014.

Seems like there really is no choice but to file client with standard deduction. Just curious - for those who have done this in the past, what has been your experience? Have you seen the client come back later with a letter stating since the other itemized, you have to itemize, so the standard deduction is eliminated and you now owe...???

Created a new return for dependent child, but by mistake put in father's SSN. Fortunately, the son's first name was after the father's alphabetically, so the son's efile was rejected due to the duplication of SSN. If it was the other way around, that would have created a very embarrassing scenario for me to explain!

From now on, I will efile the parent's first, wait for the ack, then efile all the kiddies afterwards.

NJ requires you to answer the question on designating towards the Gubernatorial Elections Fund or you cannot create the efile!

as my daughter would say when she was little - zausted.

Thanks again everyone!

You have her information, select "amend return" and enter his information and select "MFJ" on the "new 1040 that will never be filed" and enter his income and you will have a correct 1040X. You can also file that 1040 before April 15 and ignore the one you efile. In any event, you will have to paper file.

Thanks all. @Pacun - what do you mean about ignoring the one that was e-filed?

Married couple. Husband wanted to file MFS with his broker's accountant. Wife filed MFS with us. When going over return with wife, she told me that he already filed and owed (she owes too).

Mentioned to her about amending from MFS to MFJ and we would need his return to see if MFJ will be better. He calls me this morning and tells me he has not filed his return yet (we already submitted hers and it was accepted).

So my question is - assuming MFJ is better for them, can I amend her return from MFS to MFJ even though he never filed his MFS return? Or does he need to file his MFS return first, and then amend to MFJ.

Then there are the folks that bring every tax document still sealed in the envelope it was sent in....

We had a client come in with their sealed envelopes, and then when we started to open one, they said we are committing a federal offense by opening their mail and they grabbed them all and had to open them while sitting in front of us. You just can't make this stuff up!

We used to e-file an extension in this case, but after reading an earlier thread on this board, we will now not send an extension unless the client specifically requests it. I would offer one final communication, probably both via email and phone - "In order for me to e-file an extension, I need for you to confirm that this is what you would like for me to do for you. Please note you owe and a payment is also expected to be included with the extension. By not providing a payment with your extension, you will be subject to late filing penalties and interest." Something like that.

This is how I look at it:

If something takes me 15 minutes to do...without aggravation....and without overhead...it's golden.

And everyone's happy.

If I had to pay rent, electric, sit with the person....I'd feel a lot differently.

That is an impressive feat to gather the information, type it in, check it, print it, assemble it, deliver it, e-file it, follow up on the e-file in only 15 minutes. I cannot do that even if it were just a W-2!

I am not embarrassed, KC. Really just frustrated when other preparers undervalue their services and the market. It just creates a conversation with that client that we don't have time for right now!

New client. AGI over $200k. Taxpayer and spouse both have W-2. Itemized Deductions. 2 states, including resident credit. Previous preparer charged $110 for this return. We will be close to triple that. Holy sticker shock, batman!

Zippo.

I don't get this one? I round all numbers. Can you explain what I'm missing here?

On the 8949, it does not round the data entry like it does on pretty much every other form. It instead throws an error and requires us to do the rounding. Not sure why this form was coded differently like this.

The Senate Finance Committee plans to hold a hearing next Tuesday to discuss how to protect taxpayers from incompetent and unethical tax return preparers.

Big difference between incompetent and unethical. I would contend the unethical group should be a higher priority, and after they solve that problem then look to focus on the incompetent. Perhaps the committee should also hold a hearing on how to protect taxpayers from unethical members of the senate, but I digress....

Thanks Margaret. Filing local taxes is different in PA, so I wanted to make sure about KY. I couldn't find anything of value on the KY DOR webpage either!

Hi Judy - yes, the one in CT (I never indicated who it was!!) will live in CT the entire year, and the one in NY will live in NY the entire year.

One of our clients moved to Kentucky. Their W-2s show local wages and local income tax with names like: "Boone O" "Scott Co (OCC)" and "Total City". There is no pull down in ATX box 20 for Locality name in KY. I didn't see anything in the instructions for the KY740 on how to handle this. What do we do with these local taxes?

Thanks!

Yup - that's what I had. Thanks for the confirmation.

Are you suggesting filing PR/NR for both states (if MFS doesn't work out)?

Have a couple - still married, no legal separation, but for all intensive purposes they are no longer together.

One lives/works in NY and the other lives/works in CT. They own the house together in NY and the one in NY lives in the house.

Suggestions on how to file the return? How do you file resident returns, one for each spouse in their respective states? States either offer resident, part-year resident, and non-resident, but don't seem to handle the case where one is a resident of one state and the other is a resident of the other state. Any thoughts?