Lion EA

It took me two tries! He's a great guy. 27 years this June. So, yes, I'm very happy and try to smile and thank him when he waters my plants. Plus, it's easy to smile and thank him when he keeps me supplied in chocolates.

Only when I wander OUT of my office to talk. Hubby's supposed to help me proofread and drop off to a couple clients and shop and cook and NOT wander in and talk while I'm working! I try shutting my door, but he just knocks, starts talking, and wanders in -- with his shoes on, so I end up vacuuming. He also waters my plants, which is a sweet idea, but he leaves water on my wood furniture. I love him dearly, but a little less when I'm working!

For states (most of the northeast) that use the convenience of the employer rule, the employee is considered to have his tax home where his employer is located, unless the employer creates a bona fide biz location at the employees home office for the convenience of the employer -- maybe a lot of clients to service in that area, something like that. Most employers are reluctant to do that, because then the employer would have nexus in the employee's state and be required to file biz tax returns, workers' comp, etc. NY is especially aggressive about this. An employee of a NY company will have NY-sourced wages no matter where he works, such as from home in CT during a pandemic. Don't have any NJ clients, so you can research how NJ treats wages earned from a NJ company while working from home in FL.

Yep, I do like Catherine and Judy. I have a few retired clients who mail back their signature pages, and lots who sign and then don't upload it/drop it off through my mail slot for days.

I have one client who emails in a funky font. I think I've trained her NOT to use that when emailing me.

3 or 6 or 8 was exactly my problem that made me accept cataract surgery! I spent way too much time re-reading all the numbers, using the lighted magnifier on my phone, calling hubby (he's younger) in to proofread, etc. No excuse for tax documents to be in tiny font.

Hubby told me about a great FREE scanner on his phone; I figure if it can make music notes/symbols clear, it can make numbers clear. I just installed it and took a scan of a spreadsheet. Wow. It lightens the background (no more gray paper in scans) and smooths out the lines and straightens the image. Like having the original. It's called Scannable and the logo is a butterfly on an aqua background. I have a couple clients that insist on texting the pictures they take on their phones. I'm trying to get them to upload to FileShare, but if they'll use Scannable too, I'll be so happy. Yes, FREE. Delete, Rotate, Crop, Restore. Send, Share (AirDrop, Message, Mail, Twitter, all the usuals). Save to Camera Roll or Evernote. So, I'm telling my clients to Save to Camera Roll and then upload to FileShare.

If the "community" has ended, then there's no more community property after that date. Don't know what you/your client can do about income during the part of the year before community ended.

I had cataract surgery a year ago December to solve the problem of unreadable numbers. Now I'm good down to 8 pt fonts. Although, some of the scanned stuff clients send me is pretty blurry.

NOT stockpiling is what is required of us as EROs. You have options to provide for your client's benefit without breaking any laws. Simply have your client sign when ready to e-file, for instance. My job as an EA and ERO is NOT to blindly follow the instructions of the client solely for their benefit. It's my job to keep my client WITHIN the law and stay within the law myself. I choose to educate my clients instead of following their instructions.

Your client will pay tax to NY for the time he worked in NY. If his NY wages are also on his NY return, see if NJ gives a credit for taxes paid to another jurisdiction. (I haven't filed any NJ returns for a few years, so don't keep up on that state.)

If it's a qualified rollover, something you probably checked before b/f moved the funds and the VA 529 plan administrator probably checked before accepting, you might have to ask your software how to report it. You might have a tab or dropdown menu or a pop-up during 1099Q entry that asks the amount rolled over.

Yeah, at HRB we got asked to prepare Schedules D a lot (pricey Fairfield County, CT, with a lot of DIY investors, or, maybe, expensive CPAs with taxpayers trying to cut costs). And, Schedules C for the DIY crowd. We were told NOT to prepare part of a return for Gail's reason. HRB did do some "in-house" things like have a multi-state specialist for the whole district that prepared all the NR returns, signed them, and returned them to the preparer. But I worked in a Premium office where we did our own state returns. Other offices referred biz/trust/estate clients to us, but they became OUR clients for their entity returns. Today's Trivia: way back then, we prepared entity returns on ATX. That's how I found the "old" board and re-found this ATX Community when it went out on its own. Prior to the closure of the "old" board by CCH, I was going to buy ATX as I went out on my own; because I already was familiar with using it for entities. With the closure of the "old" board, I vowed to never buy CCH products ever. However, as I demoed every software out there, ProSystem fx worked the way I worked and had the capability I needed for my clientele.

The preparer signs the return as the preparer. Then the taxpayer takes the return to you or another preparer to e-file; that person signs as ERO. Years ago at Block, we could e-file a return brought in by a taxpayer and signed by a preparer. We could offer NO advice at all, or that could make us a preparer. HRB really stressed to us that we could do the data entry to exactly match the paper return and e-file only and not make any corrections or offer any advice or treat it anything like tax preparation at all. We'd enter the return as delivered to us. If there were errors, we could not e-file and also could NOT tell the taxpayer how to correct. We could only tell the taxpayer there were errors and to go back to his preparer (including if he self-prepared). If he wanted to pay us to PREPARE his return, we would do that and e-file. Since going out on my own, I will NOT e-file a return prepared by another.

They would have community property from the date of their marriage in 2020 to the end of the year, on such income items that are community by TX definition. That's all I got. Hope a TX preparer jumps on here.

I've filed CT and IL w/o Federal. I know I've filed other states alone, also. For instance, for a MFJ federal but two MFS for the state(s), you have to file the federal without the state and then file each state without the federal, right?

You don't have to attach anything if you follow the instructions for entering data.

Those fees always gave me great reasons to justify my own fees: "Why is your fee so high for something I could do myself?" "My fee is only 10% of your broker's fee!" "I never got a bill from my broker...."

This year everyone seems to have something new or different or a question for the future (thank goodness, they're asking in advance or at least planning for 2021 or telling me about it now so I can convince them to plan), and so many of the new things happened during the pandemic and as late as 27 December. Everyone seems to need me to explain why I need their January 2021 EIP payment, and has to go look for it. Everyone seems to have at least one income item that they don't usually have, whether a new side gig or unemployment or dipping into savings or retirement funds. Everyone wants to discuss what Congress is doing now and will do the rest of 2021. And, I have a few that telephone me every time they hear something on the news or read something somewhere (they can't remember where) to ask me about it. And, PPP forgiveness on entity returns is driving me nuts; I'm sitting here with a partnership that won't balance and S-corp owners calling me to ask why their returns aren't ready. And, hubby keeps wandering in, talking...

See page D-12: https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1040sd.pdf

I just went through my client list. 7% work for the aircraft industry, so all were furloughed &/or salaries reduced to this day 8% work in production of some sort that involves group work, such as theater, and didn't work from mid-March to this day (one runs a March job fair for performers/tech to meet with summer theater casting directors and had to return all her 2020 income but still had some nonrefundable deposits and other expenses already paid when her March 2020 event was canceled a couple days prior) 7% work in travel or hospitality with extreme drops in income (for one newish travel agent, $0 income in 2020) 7% work in the health care field, so a mix of "no change" and drastic change (a hospital engineer kept his salary for more hours; an ICU nurse kept her salary for more hours; a nurse in a doctor's office was reduced to half time; a nurse running group sessions at a psychiatric hospital was laid off entirely) 20% work in retail or personal services that require face-to-face, such as hairdresser, violin teacher, and other tutors; all were without work for some time; some were allowed to return to half time eventually; some were able to pivot to virtual with some new expenses 7% are teachers who kept their salaries but had more nondeductible expenses to teach from home as well as school 5% were strongly urged to retire or they would be furloughed (in some cases that resulted in a high income year for 2020 followed by a very low 2021; in others, 2020 income was lower, too) 3% died (I don't know their causes of death) I'm sure I'll find out even more Covid consequences for my clients as I prepare their returns and hear their stories. My clients are in 13 states, with a heavy concentration in CT. I don't know how CT compares to other states, but we must have a lot of the virus (or, maybe just a lot of old people) because CT just opened vaccinations to 65 and older 11 February. Most of CT is still "red"; although, my tiny town of Weston just dropped to "orange." Our tiny school district has 71 students/staff isolated/quarantined. State-wide, 63 people have the new UK variant. This is going to last a while.

You have to check each state.

Oh, yeah, and clients will ask. And, we really don't know, yet. Retirement income is taxed to the taxpayer's state of residence. But residence when? When the distribution is made? Or, when the distribution is taken into taxable income? I'm only guessing, the state when taxed. I think we'll see states litigate this. States like CT that lose retirees to FL with no income tax; CT will want tax on the whole distribution, not just 1/3 or even less. It's always one more thing!

When all else fails, read the instructions: You do not have to file a Missouri return if you are not required to file a federal return. If you are required to file a federal return, you may not have to file a Missouri return if you: a. are a resident and have less than $1,200 of Missouri adjusted gross income; b. are a nonresident with less than $600 of Missouri income; or c. have Missouri adjusted gross income less than the amount of your standard deduction for your filing status. Note: If you are not required to file a Missouri return, but you received a Wage and Tax Statement (Form W-2) stating you had Missouri tax withheld, you must file your Missouri return to get a refund of your Missouri withholding. If you are not required to file a Missouri return and you do not anticipate an increase in income, you may change your Employee Withholding Allowance Certificate (Form MO W-4) to “exempt” so your employer will not withhold Missouri tax.

It's a 2020 credit that you calculate on the 2020 return. EIP1 and EIP2 were just advances on that credit to get funds to taxpayers and into the economy as fast as possible. If your client (or the one who is not your client) received too much, they do NOT have to pay it back. If they received too little, it's now a 2020 credit. Yes, a family that alternates years claiming a dependent will get too much as a whole, but they are not whole. Just make sure your client gets her correct 2020 credit. And, contact your Congresspeople if you have concerns, because they're voting on EIP3 now!