Roberts

I've been thinking more and more about this stuff. Electronic data theft I'm not overly worried about. What type of liability does a preparer have if their physical files and paperwork are broken into and or stolen? Everything I see online is about electronic data but that's not what worries me. The CPA in the office next to mine has a massive room for of physical files and he doesn't even own a scanner.

I'm going to be of no help but about 5 years ago a CPA from a few miles away called me up, saw I was an EA and offered to hire me to do some tax returns for him. The guy said he could go as high as $12 an hour. I laughed, he got insulted and said I didn't have a work ethic. Thing was, I wasn't looking for a job - he called me completely unsolicited.

I certainly hope you are ok because other than Comcast, that's my plan. Everything electronic including backups are on encrypted drives. My physical files are all in a locked drawer but this will give me the incentive to start scanning a few folders each day. 95% of my business is on my laptop with 3 copies. One copy in my drawer, one copy in backup laptop in the office and another copy on a laptop at home. I don't have the tax software on those other computers though - just the backups. 100% of my securities business is on my laptop configuration or uploaded to my clearing firm.

There is nothing inherently wrong with having a wireless printer. 9 months out of the year I use wireless in the office but during the core of tax season I plug in because it operates faster. My home printer is wireless. At work I use a laptop and will bring it to my meetings at the conference room table and being wireless means I can easily print off a report for the client or account forms for them to sign.

When you are subpoenaed for your records, be sure and include a bill for your time when you deliver to the law firm. They will pay you. I can't imagine any lawyer would allow you to represent their client. They will bring in their own completely partial accountant for that. Don't take it personally when dealing with the attorney's.

I know that's the case for an S-corp, are you 100% sure that's the case for a C-corp? Those are two very different tax situations with obvious strategy differences. I'd also see a problem if the profits were attempted to be distributed as a dividend instead of W2 income.

Have a client who owed on his original STATE return about $100. He pays it We did an amendment and he owed $100 more and he pays it He gets a letter stating he owes another $100. No clue why but he pays it. When I called they said I needed power of attorney to talk about it even though I had power of attorney and the checkbox. They hung up on me. He gets a check in the mail for a $800 refund and no explanation. State sends him a letter saying he owes $200 and he pays it. Next year we aren't submitting the efile until the 15th of April. The IRS hasn't sent him any communication at all - only the state.

An S-corp though is a tax avoidance strategy so I could completely see that being a problem. Being paid $75k as a consultant and then declaring via the S-corp you really only were paid $25k and you avoid a bunch of SS and MEDA payments. That's not an issue here.

How do you feel it is different? Other than they are generating a W2 for themselves and paying payroll taxes that way.

They see themselves as employees to their own group. That's one of the reasons they want to flow it through their own company and operate it as an 1120 with W2 withholdings and benefits. To the company paying them - they are 100% not employees and there is no question about that. That company is legally prohibited from paying commissions to a company - they must pay to the 1099 worker directly. The regulator doesn't care if they deposit their check into a holding company. When I run my own 1099s through my business I just list them on my business return as revenue. I guess we can do that and we'll have a record for the IRS. The reps will get a straight off the board 60% of revenue paid via a W2 paycheck and then they'll get a bonus at the end of the year for any remaining profits apportioned by their share of the income. That's not a tax avoidance strategy.

I don't carry it, I do have a liability bond for part of my business (not tax). I was told by my insurance agent that if you pay for E&O insurance and they aren't doing a semi routine audit of your business practices, you are paying for a policy that is likely worthless if you really need it. For example my liability bond requires that management meet certain requirements in monitoring employee activity. From what I was told the liability bond is unlikely to actually help me but it is legally required.

Client is joining a group of friends who will all be 1099 contract labor for a company. They are joining as a group to essentially run a little company. They'll have an office they share, computers, internet / phone, an assistant / employee they all share. They really want to buy health insurance as a group of employees. How would you do that? They want to deposit their checks into the company and each would basically take a set percentage of their check as a W2 paycheck with taxes withheld. Is that feasible? How will they handle the 1099 at the end of the year? Just report it on their corporate tax return as their revenue and ignore it on their personal return? I'm afraid that's going to generate an IRS letter. The company they are contracted with requires them to receive their pay in their own personal name with a 1099, they can't receive it in the name of the company they are starting. They don't expect the company to ever show a profit as if there is one in December, they'll pay everyone a bonus to wipe it out.

Any client on an Apple computer couldn't have viewed that CD for a while I'm guessing. Half the computers in my office have CD drives. I have several clients who give me the same flash drive every year and want a pdf put on there with the current return. On Alibaba or Amazon you can buy bulk flash drives for <$1 each and about 128mb of memory. My dad has a box of them he's been given over the years but can't figure any of them out.

I give everyone a physical return but the reality is through the year they want pdfs because the originals were lost and they want some sort of financing or tuition deal.

I have an FBI agent client who has made it very clear that all documents must be hand delivered or picked up. Email, pdfs, drop box type accounts are all forbidden with him because he said they are all vulnerable. His wife rolls her eyes but he says you'd be surprised how often they are hacked. I still send encrypted pdf files because clients want them.

Just went through the paperwork to get my Real ID (state just finally got around to it recently). They accepted a W2 I printed off from your software as proof of my SSN. Mind boggling to me and I hope they verify it somewhere else.

When will we be able to print 1099s without the original forms?

I don't know that I ever entered more than 5-6 of those codes. The first year someone on here pointed out we didn't have to and I stopped.

This topic usually ends with someone being 100% sure everyone else is wrong.

Does Ruby actually schedule appointments if clients want it or do they just route calls? I'm wondering if anyone on here uses an office sharing site. A CPA in my building has decided to join one and it sounds interesting. He'll work from home all off-season but pay $90 per month for access to their conference rooms and as a mailing address. Then during tax season he'll rent a full blown office within their space to meet with clients. He expects it all to cost about $2,400 per year. He works odd hours (he'll come in at noon and leave at 10pm) and many allow that. He can cut the cost further by just using a desk within their larger space with a locked filing cabinet. I'm considering moving in the next year. Considering all options.

https://www.fiskeco.com/executors-can-be-personally-liable-for-unpaid-estate-taxes/ Failure to file can earn penalties from the IRS that the executor is personally liable.

Have you been paid?

I have an encrypted PDF of all my credit cards (front and back for phone numbers), passport, drivers license, insurance forms and so forth - it's saved in my email. If traveling I know I can get a copy of everything. You can order replacement debit or credit cards right off the BofA website. Why would anyone call? That's like mailing a letter.

In today's world, you would only need something stronger if you were playing games, doing graphic work (photo / video editing) or other high end work. For what we do at work, your computer is going to get the job done. If you'd like to cancel MS Office, LibreOffice is shareware and will open the same files. It'll do 99% of what MS will do with Office. Only problem I've ever had was that it didn't label the zones of a pie chart the way I'd like. That's it and I've used it for 5 years. Sadly I really needed those pie charts to look better but a really old copy of Office worked fine for that one file.

I use FF most everything. Opera for essentially social things. Since FF is always open, it is nice not having the social stuff open all the time and tempting. Our brokerage flows through IE along with anything for the bank or IRS. I didn't like Edge and didn't see the point of using it. Yes I know Opera and Chrome are essentially the same thing. I always delete Norton or McAfee and used to go with a free program but just used Windows Defender this time. I've never had a problem. CNET made it pretty clear in an article that it's likely as good as anything you could buy but the computer maker was paid to put a pay program on your computer.