Don in Upstate NY

According to page 11 of "Partner’s Instructions for Schedule K-1 (Form 1065)", the credit first goes to Form 3800 (line 1r), and then flows to line 54 of your 1040.

Or, he bought the property as a rental, then found out about the credit, and wants to see if living in it more beneficial than the potential rental profit. Run the numbers for him, assuming that he does in fact qualify as a first-timer. Treat it as three units rental and one personal. He's looking at a return of 10% total over three years, or less if he hits the $8,000 limit.

There is nothing wrong with using an attachment for the details of the Schedule D transactions, IF that attachment contains the data the IRS wants in the correct format. The instructions and forms have been clarified over the past several years to explicitly permit what many preparers had been doing anyway, especially with e-filed returns. What is certainly NOT permitted is a summary without the attachment, such as "Details available upon request". While some believe that the IRS computers will the match individual transactions reported on 1099-Bs with line items on the Schedule D, the conventional wisdom seems to be that the IRS will not issue a CP-2000 unless the total sales on the Schedule D are less than the total sales on the sum of all the 1099-Bs received by the IRS. The original posting specified option trades, which are usually NOT reported on a 1099-B. Because option trades are not individually reported to the IRS, do we think that they need not be individually identified on the Schedule D or attachments?

But with a W2 for $11,000 and a $91,000 LOSS on Schedule C, they don't have ANY qualifying income.

I agree with the program. With no tax due, no net earned income, and no social security or veteran's disability pay, they don't seem to qualify for any EIC, child tax credit, additional child tax credit, or recovery rebate credit. What they do seem to qualify for is a NOL, which can result in a partial or full refund of the taxes paid during the past five years. See Form 1045.

The phone number to call for information about a "F" debt is 800-304-3107. See http://www.efile.ms/Support/IRSDebtIndicat...72/Default.aspx

The maximum credit for a single filer is the full $8,000. The MFS maximum is $4,000. See the form.

Things to ponder ... Apparently TRX is limited to selling 500 copies of ATX. If they sell their full allotment they will gross between $150K and $350K, depending on the mix of $299 and $699 packages. We don't know how much of that goes to CCH, but even if they paid nothing to CCH, how many support people could TRX realistically train and devote to the ATX product without losing money on the product line? What about next year? How much management time and effort should be expended on negotiating to maintain a product line with only 500 customers? Remember, that's 500 customers who are basically loyal to the manufacturer of the product, not to you. On the other side, ask why CCH seems to be more concerned about ATX sales more than sales of their other product TaxWise? We've heard no rumors about any restrictions on the resale of TaxWise, and there even appears to be at least one other reseller out there. Could CCH be making enough money off the sales of TaxWise to their major clients (IRS/VITA/AARP/TCE) that they don't mind some lost sales to individuals and small firms?

TRX has a forum ... http://community.trxpro.com/ ... although it's not as active as this forum to date.

I can tell you about my experience in using TaxWise from TRX last year. TaxWise usually issued updates only on Tuesday mornings, unless it was something critical. So I would check the TRX site on Tuesday mornings and download the update. If I didn't manually "pull" the download, it would be "pushed" to me when I next connected to the e-file server. [Actually, I think that was only for state updates.] So there didn't seem to be any delay on updates.

Here's the link ... http://www.atxcommunity.com/index.php?show...ost&p=32346

Your client wants to claim the kids, but they are not related to him. He can claim them as qualifying relatives as long as they all lived in the same household for the entire year and no other taxpayer can claim the kids as qualifying children. If all the facts are accurate, then neither the girl friend nor her ex are required to file tax returns, nor would they have any reason to. Assuming they did not file, then they are not "taxpayers" within the meaning of the term as defined by the latest version of the qualifying child criteria. Now, what about grandma? How "small" is her pension? If she is required to file a return, or actually does file one to get some credit, then the kids become her qualifying children (even if she doesn't claim them) and your client is out of luck. If grandma doesn't file, then she also is not a "taxpayer" and your client is free to claim the kids (and his GF and her ex, and maybe even grandma too, for that matter) as his dependent qualifying relatives. Qualifying relatives don't entitle him to EIC or the child credit, and non-related qualifying relatives also don't qualify him to file as Head of Household. {With a 3 bedroom apartment, if the ex and grandma don't cohabitate, does that mean that the happy couple have to share a room with the kids? }

If the previous post talking about a CCH project to develop a new product to replace both ATX and TaxWise in 2012 is accurate, I wouldn't expect CCH to expend a lot of money on new features for either of their soon to be discontinued products.

That could be very good news. If you could combine the comprehensive nature of ATX with the stability of TaxWise, you'd have a super product.

If the taxable income of $2798 were all ordinary income not subject to any special rates, then the tax would be $279 (10%). This is for any filing status, standard or itemized deductions, any number of exemptions, etc. Does the return with the $219 tax include $600 of qualified dividends or long-term capital gains?

FWIW, this year I'm using both the TaxWise software as resold by TRX and the "real" TaxWise as licensed thru the IRS/AARP/TCE program. TRX puts a different opening page on the interface, but outside of that the programs seem identical (except that my TRX TaxWise is also licensed for all states and business returns, while the IRS version is not.) As a TRX customer I have access to the real TaxWise knowledge base for support, but have to call TRX if I want to talk to a human being. So far I've had no problems that required human intervention.

Disagree. Carryover worksheet should show the whole 1300 loss being carried to next year.

I also use them.

So here is a case where an e-filed return would have LESS information than a paper filed one. (an e-file has no data on the EIN of the withholder on dividends, etc.)

There is a warning ... but it is buried in the diagnostics. If you want something stronger, use the form defaults to enter a bad DAN (account number) like 999 on the main info sheet. Every return will fail unless you either delete the DAN for a paper check or correct it for a direct deposit.

You must have entered the interest directly onto line 33 using the override function. If instead you use the student loan interest worksheet that is linked to line 33 it takes care of both the $2,500 limit and the AGI phaseout. Note that a list of all estimates and overrides appears when the diagnostics are run, but they do not prevent e-file.

Not to defend HRB, but this sounds like a mess. Wife couldn't file MFJ with husband at HRB 'cuz hubby was not there to sign. And wife doesn't have POA, mama does. One might question how wife filed MFS for husband in any case without his signature or POA.

Too late. They already passed the stimulus bill. :dunno:

The T indicates that the payer doesn't know if the recipient has had the Roth for over 5 years. You use part III of the 8606 to say that he has and that the money came from the conversions. As you note, the gross amount ends up on line 16a with zero taxable on 16b. Code 7 is not used for a Roth. Code Q would be used if the payer knew for certain that the distribution was qualified. [see the instructions for the 1099-R.]

No, she repays it at the rate of $480 per year. [she only got $7,200.]