David1980

If you could choose to file single, as "you do not qualify for another filing status" (other than MFJ or MFS), why would anyone ever file MFS?

If you sign the return as paid preparer and give it to the taxpayer to do whatever, you don't need the signature. No 8879 to keep, etc... What they do with it once you give it to them is between them and the IRS. When you are acting as ERO however, your responsibility is to keep the signed 8879 - suddenly you are responsible for that. This is one reason people don't like efiling, and increases your responsibilities.

If you're efiling, the POA needs to be mailed in with the 8453.

I'd run through the support worksheet in Pub 501 and if the kid doesn't provide over half his support, tough. Can't claim your own exemption if you can be claimed as a dependent. Doesn't matter if someone claims you or not.

You can efile with a substitute for W-2 form. The 4852 itself doesn't get transmitted in the EF data, a non-standard W-2 should be in the EF image. Details are in Pub 1345. The only real question is do you use the 4852 or not. IRS tax tip 2011-28 indicates "File your return You still must file your tax return or request an extension to file April 18, 2011, even if you do not receive your Form W-2. If you have not received your Form W-2 by the due date, and have completed steps 1 and 2, you may use Form 4852, Substitute for Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement." Which would suggest you're supposed to wait til the due date before using a 4852. Of course, I know nobody does wait and as far as what the IRS gets in the EF image it's just a non-standard form W-2, so they wouldn't even know you did a substitute unless you went through an EF audit. It also indicates you have to complete steps 1 & 2, step 2 is to contact the IRS. So perhaps it would be prudent to contact the IRS and then use 4852 if they say to? http://www.irs.gov/newsroom/article/0,,id=106470,00.html

"Well, I'm going to someone that can" Unfortunately she will find someone that can. There's a lot of people who want fake returns created. Put some household employee wages on line 7. Put in that they had education expenses, get the refundable AOC. Get the $400/$800 MWP. EIC if they have kids or can "borrow" someone else's kids for the tax return. The shady preparer probably will do it and just not sign the return. Or maybe they will, maybe they'll wait for the taxpayer to leave and fraudulently file it with a bank product and take $800 of the refund as prep fees. Hopefully the IRS catches on and catches the preparer. Hopefully they also take the refund from the taxpayer to pay back the fraudulent refund for the next several years. My guess is most get away with it though. :(

510 can also occur when a dependent files a return as the primary or secondary. Probably more likely that one of the dependents filed a tax return and claimed their own exemption. Do you know which field the reject is on?

Yes. No. Yes, parent always wins over non-parent when they're both eligible to claim the child.

That reject is just saying that line 52 of the 1040 doesn't equal lines 11 + 27 of the 5695. So on the return, do they equal?

As does the preparer. They're just exempted from the testing/CE. Still gotta pay their $65 and get a PTIN.

The info I saw from IRS is they're aware of it happening with 64 year olds, which suggests the IRS records are off by 2 years not just 1. Also that it wasn't seen as a high priority fix because it doesn't affect a lot of people. If it takes more than a couple weeks to fix it would have been faster to get the refund mailing it in?

That would be an IRS reject 0204. What's going on is the IRS computer thinks both taxpayer & spouse are age 65 or older. You can try calling the IRS e-help desk, but in my experience this is almost always a paper file situation.

What difference would it make if the parents paid 100% of the brother/sister's support or if the son paid 100% of his siblings support?

If custodial parent is in Pakistan, does the child also live in Pakistan?

Income can be pretty deceptive in trying to determine who provides over half the support of a student. Thanks to student loans, the student can spend thousands of dollars on their own support that does not show up as income (as the student loans a student uses for themself is support provided by the student.) So I would look at that aspect. Ultimately it comes down to whether the student provides over half their own support or not. If they do then they shouldn't be claimed as a dependent. If they do not, then they cannot claim their own exemption. There's a worksheet in Pub 501 that covers the common support items.

I assume the client is a US citizen and the 4 dependents have green cards?

I've been seeing ITIN filers receiving the $400 on the credit, getting a letter that their refund was adjusted to give them the credit, and getting a second letter about a week later asking for the $400 back...

Of course the question with home buyers is does it really increase the purchase of homes. Obviously people aren't deciding to go homeless for lack of a tax credit for buying a home. So they're choosing to live somewhere. If that somewhere is already a home (perhaps rented) then all you're doing is moving them from home A to home B. There would be some percentage of shared family homes - for example two families in 1 house where if one family decides to move to their own home you could then have 2 homes instead of 1. To some extent this also could happen with apartments. It's not exactly without losses though, as the apartment owner (and thus the mortgage holders for apartment owners) will lose out as apartments go vacant. I'm not convinced the FTHBC is any more effective than other methods of injecting money into the economy, and it's really more about luxury than necessity (since people lived somewhere before moving to a new home). I'd rather the government inject money into the economy through government spending on health care reform or something seen more as a necessity rather than a luxury.

The IRS did release a way for us to find out. The way is you file the return, and if it doesn't match their records it rejects. Very convenient, we should thank them. /sarcasm

No, I'd prefer a graduated income tax without all the deductions adjustments and credits. Basically the Japan tax system. Yeah, that would probably put me out of business...

I found it terribly unfair when I was attending university that my father's income counted against me getting financial aid. He and his new wife had no interest in providing 1 penny of support but I had to include it anyway, while even another kid with a poor parent might have had more family support than I did, but also qualified for more financial aid. Taxes are the same. They're not fair. The kiddy tax is one I have less issue with than other stuff at least, I hate EIC and ACTC worse than kiddy tax. And certainly kiddy tax can be very unfair. It's all situation based. Unfortunately without making the tax system subjective there's no real way to tell if that $2000 investment income is the father trying to move his investments into his kids names to avoid tax or if the kid is just unlucky enough to have rich parents that don't care about him or his taxes. Or how about when you can get EIC with $3000 of rental income but have $3500 of rental income and now you can't. That $500 of income could cost you thousands of dollars. Taxes just aren't fair.

Reminds me of one of this comedian's skits. NSFW... (language) Skip to about 7 minutes in.

They "sort of" received the $400. The payroll withholding tables were adjusted with the idea being tax withheld would be about $400 less or $800 for MFJ. But it makes no difference at all as far as how you preparer the return. Regardless of whether their withholding was adjusted or not, whatever it shows on the W-2's for withholding is what was withheld.

Wouldn't that create two original tax returns for the taxpayer?

Probably doing it for bank products, where the prep fees are taken from refund with a bank product. In which case they may have just set it up to grab it from every return without looking to see if a bank product was attached. Might be easier, or something? than differentiating bank products to non-bank products. No doubt they'd prefer everyone did the bank products so they can collect their "technology" fee.