Roberts

https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/avoid-probate-small-estate-29629.html In Missouri and Illinois, a court order is most certainly not always required. For example in Illinois: Some things pass automatically to other people according to law, and never go into the estate. For example, real estate or bank accounts held in joint tenancy pass directly to the surviving joint tenants, and life insurance proceeds go directly to the beneficiaries. Things that aren’t part of the deceased person’s estate don’t have to be handled in settling their estate. Probate is one way to settle an estate when someone dies, but it's not the only way. And it's not always required. Illinois law permits a simplified procedure for handling small estates that doesn't go through regular probate procedures. When an estate contains less than $100,000 in total assets, with no land, it’s considered a “small estate,” and can be settled using Illinois small estate procedures. As an example of procedure in Illinois - with TOD (for real estate especially but also bank / investment accounts) and correct usage of beneficiaries on retirement accounts you can get a rather large estate under the $100k threshold.

You most certainly can make a distribution without a court's permission. There are size requirements before a probate court will even get involved so it's certainly legal to distribute in many cases.

Yep, a checkbox saying they are non-residents yet subject to city tax would actually be a different form indicating they are city employees. I don't know how a part year resident would ever be able to have a checkbox since you would need to enter dates and attribute income. The software will figure it out - you have to actually give it the required information.

The estate or the beneficiaries can pay the tax on income. Your post said it is unusual for beneficiaries to pay the tax on income earned and that is simply not true. It's very routine for them to choose to flow it through to the beneficiaries because a lot of the time it will mean less tax paid.

I bought the DVDs and did a few OIC - all were accepted. With the online programs, it's relatively simple. One lady went from owing well over $70k to about $10k - still refused to pay even though the IRS had conditionally accepted. My problem with OIC is I don't tend to like the clients. Lady who didn't pay - several years later wanted to try it again and kept complaining I wasn't working quickly enough on it. Oddly kept ignoring payment of my retainer before I'd begin working.

The 1041 would still pass through to the beneficiary their share of the income for TAX purposes. That's why Rich wrote "The fiduciary controls the cash, not me..." If it's a trust you don't need court permission to distribute assets or income.

Oh and I got the email (repeatedly actually) to update my IRS information. It looked completely real.

I did the hair dryer thing (when I had hair). When sick with a high fever - I would use the dryer to head up the bed - never fell asleep with it and would only use it for a minute maybe.

Are you a member of ASTPS (your headline is wrong)? Do you handle many offers in compromise?

Yes it's very possible. I purchased a will writing software program ($9.99) for the wife and I to produce our wills. There were options on doing just this sort of thing. The spouse needs to sign off on your intentions in most states or it'll be voided. We aren't a community property state but the law makes it pretty clear you aren't allowed to exclude your spouse from assets both generated. Locally, a judge would throw out a will that essentially made the spouse destitute. They essentially look at it as someone attempted to manipulate the situation or it was intentional to shift expenses upon the state (medicaid). For example, had a client of a tax client worth about $1.5 million and tried to shift all the assets to the children so his wife (diagnosed with Alzheimer) would go into a state funded nursing facility and save the money. The judge voided the will and attributed half the money to the spouse and half as the will had dictated.

I would efile and I wouldn't change anything - continue with the direct deposit. Since you know so much information, I'm assuming you know if they have proactively closed the account for some bizarre reason and a direct deposit would be voided. If it is, a check will eventually be issued anyway. Let's not pretend to be attorney's - not our job or license ( unless that's who you are).

My problem with Drake is that I prefer forms data entry even if it is to guide me to specific forms - yet I don't like Drake's. Their data entry screens are very bewildering to my mind at times - especially if it is a new issue and I need to go looking for the credit entry. The greatest thing about Drake is how it rolls over everything from one year to the next and it has every worksheet you'd imagine. I like seeing how they didn't qualify for specific credits or whatever else. Very impressive - especially for the money. Had one problem with Drake this year on my state. Client was retired military and he had a small state pension also. The software simply could NOT figure out how to give him the small state pension a 0% tax rate and a reduced tax rate on the military pension (on the state return). It looked like it was doing it properly but when it figured out the tax - it was off. It effectively was taxing the state pension as earned income but it sure didn't look like it when you printed it off. That's a pretty bizarre issue consider how few people have even one pension. He'll be getting Social Security soon also - that's going to be funny to watch.

IT-360.1 OLTPRO will do it. It works the same way in Drake.

Common sense isn't common. Seriously, we have government advertising, warning labels and calorie information all over the place documenting a proper diet and what not to eat repeatedly. To eat a candy bar you literally have to tear through the warning labels. With all this information over 1/3rd of Americans are morbidly OBESE. We all pay the price in higher taxes and insurance premiums because they can't figure out when to stop eating. Common sense is something people without it think they have. The reason McDonalds lost that lawsuit (and had settled hundreds previously) was because their own people and their own documents showed they recognized they were serving a dangerous product and failed to provide a warning even though they recognized a warning was probably a good idea. Oh and, not all coffee is served hot.

Didn't include my own fee. I would normally be $185-225. Last year a chain charged her $437. I'm not saying which chain. Sort of shocked me. The preparer had no credentials.

New tax return was brought to me today (the taxpayer died before submitting their tax return and the previous preparer threw a fit that they couldn't sign the 8879 and their child was so offended by the comments they came to me). W2, a single investment account 1099 with dividends, interest, capital gains distribution from mutual fund, three 1099's for interest received and SS income. They have a Schedule A itemization but it's nothing special. House and car taxes, 4 charitable donations. That's it. That is the scope of the entire return. Took me 34 minutes to complete it and that's because it's a new client setup, review of last years return, 5+ minutes to review a HUD statement and I reviewed the mutual funds they held for a few minutes for my own interest. What would you charge for that? I was rather shocked by the charge slip included with last years return.

Haven't encountered it but I would delete if they sent me attachments without previous contact. The idea of having massive numbers of emails in my in-box - mind blown. Little too compulsive to allow that. Bothers me when I have 2-3 that aren't categorized properly.

So many companies are switching to virtually effortless contact via the internet. Bizarre when a company is going the opposite direction. I tend to avoid those companies because I don't want to be bothered by their games. I have no problem with renewal notices - I appreciate it. Not intrusive contact. I've already renewed my software for next year so the basic renewal notices are valued by me. I don't do physical trips onsight for tax training. Doesn't make sense for me to travel to another location when online training works just as effectively.

The thing about Win 10 that ticked me off the most was the fact it wouldn't work with ANY of our printers. WTH? Called Canon and Brother and they said they would never have a driver that was compatible and they aren't old printers. Returned the computer (it had MANY problems) later the day I bought it and went with a mini-pc which had Windows 8. Turned off all auto updates from Microsoft.

Just had a pick-up on Friday and the guy asked if he needed to mail in the 1099's he wrote out for a contract worker. Another client hand writes out W-2s. He had the W2s in his tax file to me and I noted the copy to be submitted to the state was in there. He admitted he had never mailed in those copies before.

Just got an email from TRX wanting me to renew (I'm not a customer?): Kathy Hughes Trx Software Sales I wonder how many people they have stolen from this year.

No returns are expected to come into the office for 2+ weeks. two pickups remaining three I'm waiting for a small amount of data each but we've been given a 1-month extension. Waiting on e-file authorization from about 25 returns but I know on Monday I'll get 1 call for all of them that says - GO! I might have a beer or four tonight.

When I got into taxes about 12 years ago a friend was shocked because he was 100% certain that the US Government would overhaul the tax system and we'd soon have those postcard returns that people bring up every other year. If there is one thing I'm 100% certain of, Congress will never fix the tax system in the USofA in my business lifetime.

Client of mine had something similar and their AOL (yes, aol) email account had over 1,000 emails attempted to be sent. Very weird. I've seen those from friends but never saw the result from the infected computer before. For your client - tell them you do not and have never had their banking information and you do not have a virus (are up and running) so how could it have originated with you? Just because an email looks like it came from me doesn't mean it did. Just because AVG doesn't see anything doesn't mean there isn't something. Download AVAST - run a boot scan (it's free) and a full scan. Those boot scans will catch some junk where nothing else will (takes a long time). You can also download / run Panda (free), IObit Malware Fighter (free), and Spybot (free). When I've been infected with a computer virus - it's because my primary didn't catch it but another did. Be 100% sure you aren't infected before declaring yourself not the problem. I wouldn't be worried because they proclaim you are responsible for a virus on their computer. If it's not you - oh well. You weren't malicious so don't worry.

It's relatively easy to change and an easy mistake to make. Just make sure it's wrong and the client informed them correctly before demanding they change it.