ILLMAS

This year a new client came in and told me they itemized last year, I asked a series of questions, do you own a house, pay property and mortgage interest, had high medical expenses, donated lots of monies to charity or have high amounts of unreimbursed employer expenses, they said NO. Then I told them I would need to see your prior year tax return to see if your really itemized and I am still waiting for them to come back.

Yeah Lent Friday!!!!

I agree with everyone that agreed, and being in agreement with the topic.

^^^ They forgot to mention about the lady who could not find the "any key".

This article is from early 2000's All summer silicon.com has been running a competition asking you, our readers, to let us know your worst, and most embarrassing tales of helpdesk woe. Urban myths abound about people using the drawer of their CD ROM drive as a coffee cup holder - not to mention the infamous woman whose PC had cut out and failed to restart. The helpdesk worker on the end of the phone went through a comprehensive checklist - baffled by the failure. Eventually, when asked whether everything was plugged in around the back of the machine, she admitted she couldn't see too well as the office was dark. 'Why?' asked the helpdesk worker. "Because there has been a power cut" came the reply. Whether these are all true is unclear. They almost certainly happened to somebody once - but if everybody who claims them as their own is telling the truth then the world is a far more dangerous place than even the most cynical had ever feared. However, as well as various retellings of these two tall tales, we received a number of others - some of which appear below: First up, some problems with a floppy disk... "A woman rang up to say she was having trouble installing the software on a floppy disk and it kept giving her errors. "Can you send me a copy of the disk I asked?... Sure enough, two days later, I received in the post a photocopy of the floppy disk." And if you thought that was bad - try working with somebody like this... One worker told their desktop support: "I want to move the pointer on the screen to the right. I have moved the mouse to the right-hand edge of the mouse mat, but the pointer is still near the middle of the screen. Can I get a bigger mouse mat?" One helpdesk worker told us: "A user wanted to change the backdrop on their computer, so instead of taking them through to the control panel, they were asked to right-click on their desktop to save time. The user replied that she didn't see what good that would do, but did it all the same. Turns out after investigation that she had got a pen and written 'Click' on her desk...." And then there's this timeless classic - true of offices everywhere: "A user called the helpdesk because they had not been able to print for six months. After the usual troubleshooting had no joy, an engineer called at the user's desk, and switched the printer on..." To everybody who deals with these kinds of problems and queries - we salute you.

This is the first time I see this, so would like to get others opinions to see if this appropriate, I am reviewing a prior year partnership return that has two rental properties, however non-rental expenses were reported on the front of the 1065. Prior preparer reported the following expenses on the 1065 instead of form 8825: Bank charges Tax Prep Fees Travel Auto Expenses Communication Expense Telephone Meals I am ready to send an email to my client for them to explain to me why all of there expenses seem high for the amount of rent they collect, also their personal residence is less then a mile away from their rental properties and they reported 8K plus mileage. My question is shouldn't these expenses be divided between properties and maybe recommend for them to amend the prior to move the expenses from the 1065 to the 8825. I would understand if a management company had rental properties, the normal operations would be reported on the 1065 and the rental activity on the 8825.

A CPA I know used to say, give them every piece of paper the tax software would spit out, this will help in justifying their high fee. And I think he is correct.

A preacher and unreported rents, no that can't be.

I have a client that says they could not afford health insurance but never attempted to go through the ACA process, their income is fairly low, however they are still being hint with a small penalty. My question is, can a TP still claim un-affordable under Part III individual exemptions? I figure someone would know here. Thanks

The IRS was not kidding when they said they are going do a better job with EIC refund or in general, TP called me today, I received a letter from the IRS letting me know they are not going to release my refund until I file my 2013 tax return. My response was yes, what's wrong with that

Does your state require a financial audit? Our state (state's attorney general) does when income is above $300K, most likely an auditor will not consider the letter dated on the 31st, but would recognize the revenue as received in 2017. The contributor is the only one who won.

I don't touch any payroll clients that involve health insurance, I let ADP deal with it, but I would recommend just taking a basic payroll course.

The ugly: This past January I attended a tax seminar and the instructor said he was able to get his client income under the 400% by having his client and wife put money in an IRA account. He gave us a couple of examples in our material, you might want to play around the IRA numbers and see if it goes down and if it does charge them double.

My price would probably be at around $1200 to $1600 for both.

A person a I know bought the Sanford Ink building on Washintong & 25th Ave.

I would appreciate it if someone can help me with this scenario: TP paid $60K to have solar panels installed, back in 2015 TP was using 75% of the building for personal use, in 2016 it went from 75% to 50% personal use (residence), so I would have to take $60K x 50% = $30K x 30% (residential energy credit) = $9K, and on the Sch E I would just depreciate $30K over 5 or 7 years? Also in ATX which asset sub-category would I use for the business portion? Thanks

I believe I have found the answer here: http://solargaines.com/how-to-depreciate-your-commercial-solar-investment-with-macrs/

TP installed solar panels in a four flat building, 50% is personal use the other 50% is business use, would the credit be subject to 50% personal use or 100%, also can we depreciate the business use portion? Thanks MAS

In the past IL required for a IL-W-2 to be submitted, a simple call would solve the problem, today the state has no record per employee, just the overall of the company, I would just use the states' tax rate and make the sign of the cross that they don't ask for proof. MAS

I have a similar case, TP inherited parents IRA account and TP was penalized for not taking RMD, TP is way under 70 1/2, parent was over 70 1/2.

Rita, I have x-ray vision and whats inside that envelope doesn't look good for you

Student is under the age of 24

I would say about 99% of my clients that have kids in college claim their kids as dependents, about 12 years ago one of my client kid went ahead and did their own tax return and the parent could not claim them. A few months later the parent came back with the kids' tax return and the school financial aid department wanted for the return to be amended and included on the parents return. My question is more towards FASFA, if TP kid does there return apart from the parent, would it have an impact on FASFA? I have a TP that has a dependent that would benefit more by filing independently from the parent, because they can take advantage of the student interest and education credits vs the parent claiming them (phaseout because of income).

Is the tax summary and planner from ATX?