Chowdahead

Bouncing a check is still a misdemeanor in many states. Tell HER your going to file a police report if she doesn't cough up the balance due within 30 days. You did nothing wrong. You deposited a check on the date it was dated. It was her legal obligation to have the funds available. Which brings me to another point. Ever since the recent consumer protection law passed regarding banks and credit cards, I may stop taking checks all-together. Customers now have to opt-in in order to allow checks to be paid by the back even if they don't have the funds to cover the check. Otherwise, the default action is for the check to "bounce", causing a fee for the accountholder and the depositer. In tha last few years, I can't remember having a bounced check. This year, I already have seen one. $20 fee on me. I may stick to cash, credit card, or RAC. Can't do FeeCollect because I still have a number of unbanked customers.

Amended a return last night and didn't see any such problem. I haven't given it to the customer yet, so I'll have to double-check it later.

The SSA card is outdated. It should list FIRST, MIDDLE, and LAST name like every other type of government card. Instead it just lists the name, without specification as to which part is which. It's annoying!

On the other hand I had a barber drop off literally thousands of copies of receipts that he gives his clients when they pay him. Plus lots of supply receipts. He expects me to add all this up? I'm going to have to charge him for this...

Client on another matter brought me his 2010 return that was prepared by another preparer. He wants to pay me to review it and make sure it's completed accurately. He has a 3-family rental property. He lives in one of the units. Everything looks good. But I noticed a worksheet that looks useful to me. It's called the "Part Year Part Rental Part Ownership or Personal Use Unit" worksheet that allows automatic calculation of personal use and rental use for the 3 family. It has 3 columns to split the amounts. On the bottom left of the form, it says 2010 "CCH Small Firm Services. Al Rights Reserved". so it looks like an ATX form. But I can't find it in my program or any of my Sch E returns. In the middle of the bottom of the pages it says "USW/RENTA", which I assume is the form name. Anyone here know how to access this worksheet?

You are correct. It is rationing. ATX sent an email to all its preparers. And your client will not receive their refund until 3/4/2011 at the earliest.

If you put it on the Sch C, the poor sap will pay $1200 in self-employment taxes on it. I'd consider it "other income". It's worth the $1200 gamble IMO.

Federal law does not top a binding court-sanctioned agreement between the two parties. It's easy to just throw out there "IRS doesn't care what state courts say". If a person agrees in court to release the exemption for that year, and they reneg, then they are in violation of the agreement. If a person agrees to pay X amount of child support a month and they don't, then they are in violation of the agreement. This has nothing to do with the IRS.

You are correct, but many divorce decrees that I have seen actually include the signed IRS consent form for multiple years well in advance, until the child turns 18. Even if the divorce decree doesn't include the signed form, and the wife agreed in court to give the exemption in those years, and then subsequently doesn't, she is in contempt.

I've had a couple of people come in and tell me that they heard there was a credit for paying child support and they want to claim it on their return. As far as I know, there is no such credit. Child support payments can neither deducted or reported as income as far as I know. They weren't happy with my answer and they simply said they were going to go a place they heard was doing it. Me being studious, I decided to research the issue, and still found nothing to support their claims. I can only surmise that preparers are actually claiming the child on these people's return for the exemption only. I've done several of returns like these, but the client always has the signed IRS release form from the other parent for that tax year. As far as I know, the other parent must be aware and cooperate with this and file their return so that they only claim the Earned Income Credit, and not the exemption. In ATX, I've accomplished this by clicking the "Do not claim this dependent this year" box on the Dependents Data entry sheet. Otherwise, when the return for the child support payer is transmitted, it will get rejected because the dependent SSN has already been used on another return, correct? Or if the child support payer files first, the actual custodial parent's return will get rejected, screwing up their situation. When I try to explain the entire "exemption only" vs. EIC concept, their eyes gloss over because it is not an easy thing to explain to the average person. Am I right on this?

As far as I know, the IRS doesn't care about child support payments, and whether they are current or not. They simply care who the child resided with more than half the year, OR if one parent releases the exemption to the other parent by signing that particular form the IRS has for that purpose. So if she is pissed at hubby for not paying support, and the child actually resided with her for more than half the year, she should fill out another one of those forms, revoking the exemption release (if it was a multiple year release). Of course this may put her in contempt of court if she agreed to give him the exemption in their divorce decree, but the ex-husband is also most likely in contempt by not paying support anyway, so these things tend to cancel each other out in state courts. But all of that has nothing to do with the IRS and the exemption.

I've seen that mostly on the networked machine, not the server much. Maybe once on the server. I have had the program just blatantly and suddenly just crash without warning on the server. It has happened about 5 times after about 350 returns. When it has happened this year, it has been when rolling over a return. I don't remember a single crash last year or even in previous years.

Keep in mind that this an iPhone/Android based service. In a office environment, some clients may find it odd to see you swiping their credit card on a phone rather than on a traditional swiper. If you are a preparer that does house calls, then it's a no-brainer. I have been using the Inuit service for the first time this tax season and I find it very slow. One day the site even failed to load so I had to bill the customer since I could not take his payment. Unacceptable.

Thanks for the info. I was assuming as much.

Does the client have an SSN or an ITIN? If they have an ITIN, you must enter the ITIN at the top of the return, and then in the W-2 input sheet, where it says "Taxpayer Identification Number", enter in the SSN that you see on one of the W-2. If you notice, whenever there is an ITIN on the top of the return, ATX will not automatically enter the ITIN for the taxpayer on the W-2 Input sheet.

I uses Santa Barbara and I all my direct deposit clients received their funds via direct deposit from Santa Barbara.

Return is Married Filing Jointly with one dependent, and the husband makes all the money, around $46K. Spouse had no income. They paid about $3700 for daycare expenses, but the form won't calculate a credit. I've deciphered that the reason is because since the spouse had no income, then the credit is disallowed. The form clearly states that lower income of either spouse must be used in calculating the credit, if the return is MFJ. In this case the lower income is 0. I looked in the IRS 2441 instructions and it makes no mention of this reasoning. I'm assuming that the government assumes that if one spouse had no income then they should be home watching the kids? There is an exception for spouses who are a student or disabled, but that doesn't apply here. Is my reasoning above sound?

Perhaps I overthought it then. I was thinking that the credit could be taken for the first four years since it was enacted. So if in 2009 you were a junior in college, you could take the AOC your Junior year and Senior year, and then take it your 1st and Second years in grad school. But if you go onto to med school, your out of luck. I guess my confusion stems from the fact that the IRS.gov information pages mentions nothing about undergrad. It simply mentions qualified education expenses at an accredited college or technical or trade school. Anyone else have thoughts on this, or is the consensus that it's strictly an undergrad credit (freshman thru senior years)?

I have found info regarding Graduate Students and the Lifetime Learning credit. However, the 1040 Express Answers and the Q&A on the IRS Website are silent on undergrad or grad student school expenses being claimed for the AOC. It simply says "first four years of college". Does this mean undergrad? What if someone is in their first year of grad school?

Yesterday, client came to me from HRB. They were charging her $364.00 for a RAC for return as Head of Household with her daughter as dependent, EIC, and one W-2 and one 1099-G (Unemployment), and a state return.

Seems to be working now.

3 days ago, after reading this thread, I switched my program to "ALWAYS HOLD AND RELEASE", Since then I have created e-files for around 30 returns, and I noticed the State e-file was held, which I expected. About 24 of them have been listed as "Accepted". Yet the corresponding state e-file for that e-file had not been released from the "Held" status, even though the Federal e-file was listed as Accepted. So, out of frustration, I simply released all the state e-files being held and just transmitted them. I just don't have the time to go through each and every state e-file and manually verify that the Federal e-file was accepted. I was expecting the progam to do that for me. I still have it set to "Always Hold and Release" so I'll see over the next few days if it starts working.

Well that's not happenings for me. They simply sit in the "held category".

I have about two dozen federal returns listed as ACCEPTED... but I have yet to get prompted to release the state for each return. In E-file Options, I have it set to "Always hold and release". When am supposed to get prompted to release the state e-file?

I've had 2 arguments with providers recently over this issue. They refuse to give my clients their SSN, and they don't have EINs. They insist on giving me their state license number, and I tell them that's not what I need. I had one client who lost $1,100 of her refund because the provider refused to provide either an EIN or SSN. I told her, "time to get a new daycare".