JohnH

I like jainen's reply, especially the last sentence. A good pricing pattern to follow is the one an optometrist taught to his new assistant. After the exam, look the customer straight in the eyes and say, "Mr Jones, you need eyeglasses." He will always ask how much they cost. Keep your focus on his eyes and say "$100". If he doesn't blink, say "For the Lenses" If he still doesn't blink, say "Each" If he still doesn't blink, say "And of course you'll need a spare set"

Pacun: Thank you for the kind words and the encouragement. It isn't that I don't know how to efile, I just don't care to do it. Just to be clear, I'm not staying away because of the technology or the process. I have several business reasons for staying firmly in the non-e-filing camp until I'm forced to do it. If that happens before I retire, I'll switch over the afternoon of the day it becomes mandatory, not a day sooner. Or I may retire on that day - who knows? Stated another way, I'll begin efiling the day Jerry Mealer begins efiling. And although I respect many of jainen's posts, I completely disagree that refusing to efile is short-changing MY clients. That's probably true for some preparers, but I remain unconvinced. We all don't have the same client base or the same business model.

What is the number of returns that one must prepare to come under the mandatory e-file rules in CA? I only file one CA return (paper, of course), and I plan to stay with paper unless NC or the IRS forces me to change. If NC goes to mandatory efile and the cutoff number of returns is set high enough, my first step would be to increase my fees sufficiently to drive off enough clients to keep me under the threshhold , and maybe make more $ in the process.

Well, if you look at their "Latest News" and notice that the most recent item posted was a 5/4/07 notice about the cutback in their customer service hours, you get a further indication of how important communication is to them right now. Except, of course, the constant urging to sign up early - now that side of the communications equation seems to be working just fine.

Melvin: So what would be a reasonable amount of start-up capital if you decided to do this and required some investors?

Thanks for the replies. I had the 24-month rule figured out, including the importance of actually occupying the house when it is completed, but had not been able to nail down whether the T/P could make a year-by-year choice on which home constitutes the 2nd home when there was a precedent already in place. This was a big deal in this case. $1,200 interest on the time share vs $25,000 interest on the home under construction. The Sec 163 reference was right on target - I appreciate that. Reading down to (h)(4)(A), I find that the taxpayer can make the determination of which is the 2nd residence and each year stands on its own.

Interesting little quirk here - maybe someone has seen this before and can steer me right before I research it further. For several years, T/P has been deducting interest on primary residence and also interest paid on a deeded time share as a second residence. This year the T/P began building a new home, so now they have mortgage interest on the primary residence, time share, and the construction loan on the new home. I'm assuming he can just stop considering the time share as a second residence and deduct the interest on the home under construction as a second residence. Am I right?

Don: You'd better get it fixed or your turntable drive might become a hamster steak. The little fellows can only stand so much irradiation before they begin to cook.

I have several clients whose employer moves them from time-to-time and reimburses all expenses. Other than the specifically excludable moving expenses, all other reimbursements are taxable income. This employer is nice enough to gross up the reimbursement in order to make the employee whole, but they are not required to do so. In any event, the realtor fees are always included in the gross-up and added to the W-2 as wages, taxable like any other earned income.

Deb: Good negotiating. Hold out for the coffe pot, toaster, & microwave oven. I have a feeling we will eventually get to that point.

I'm guessing the explanation will accompany their next statement of the upcoming year's benefits, which I think is sent out in Oct or Nov. It will probably say they should expect a make-up check without saying the check may have already been sent. By then the client will have forgotten all this and will be looking for another check. Oh well, at least SSA sent the $$$. It's hard to complain about that.

Well, it turns out to be much simpler than I first thought. After spending most of her day on hold and being shuttled from one person to the other, she learned tha it was nothing more than a SocSec benefit increase. The taxpayer's monthly SocSec benefit was increased as a result of her reported W-2 earnings over the past several years since she retired. For some reason it took them a long time to process the info, and the $1,500 check was indeed a make-up check for the retroactive payment. I still don't know why it has the notation on it, but just to the left of the amount imprinted on the check, it clearly says: SOC SEC FOR INS

Bob: Thanks for that info. The client definitely doesn't fall into any of those categories. I've told her not to sit on this - she's supposed to be contacting SSA today.

Taxbilly: I tried searching it earlier but didn't come up with anything near what you got. Thanks for the link - that was very useful. It seems that this notation has somehting to do with SSI and/or Medicaid, neither of which would apply to this client. I advised them to not cash the check and to contact SSA about it right away. It could be a simple SSA error, or it could be the tip of an identity theft or Medicaid fraud iceberg.

I really like the uni-forms. I buy enough in one year to last 2 or 3 years, which you can do since nothing is preprinted on them so they aren't year-specific. You can also use them for 1099's, which is a time saver.

Client came into my office this AM with a $1500 check from US Treasury. Client is age 67 and has been receiving SocSec benefits since age 62, plus has been receiving salary from closely-held corp. Check is in her name, although she files a joint tax return with her husband. I told the client to look for some sort of correspondence in the next few days explaining the payment. In the meantime, I'm trying to figure out what it might be. I don't think it's a tax refund of any sort (no refunds are pending). The notation on the check to the left of the amount says "SOC SEC FOR INS". Has anybody ever seen this notation or have any idea what this may be?

Thanks for the heads up KC. I think I was about to be affected by this virus, so your warning was just in the nick of time. But just the same, I think I'll apply the antidotes as a preventative - one can't be too careful, you know.

Intriguing post? Me? I'm flattered. Maybe it can be explained by the fact that I follow the "blind hog" theory with my responses. -> " Even a blind hog will turn up an acorn from time-to-time if you let him root around long enough".

Retired taxpayer (age 74) in NJ with $12K of AGI (plus untaxed SocSec benefits) gave me their property tax reimbursement paperwork, expecting a property tax rebate. Property tax paid in 2004 was $4,031 and in 2005 was $4,387, so they recevied a rebate of $64. Their 2006 property tax paid was $4,329, so it appears to me that they are not due a property tax rebate because they did not have an increase in property tax between 2005 and 2006. Is this correct, or am I missing something?

Pacun: If you're trying to analyze the net result of the situation, you might want to add up the total he has paid out and then subtract from that the amount he would have paid in rent to live in the same neighborhood in a home roughly the size of the one he occupied. Depending upon the dollars involved, you may find that financially he has lost less than it first appears. He might also consider that if he made a bad decision at the outset in terms of overpaying for the house or committing to more than he can afford, the one-time financial hit to get out may be less than it would have cost him in the long term to hang on to a bad investment. (More or less like selling a losing stock. Sure you get the tax loss, but you're still out real money) As for the debt forgiveness, it depends. Did the circumstances that caused him to fall into foreclosure include the fact that he was insolvent? If so, the debt forgiveness won't cause him a tax problem.

Pacun: I think IRS will automatically give the client 4 months if he just calls & asks. I handled one a few months ago by calling IRS with the client on the line. Amount due was about $3K and they were expecting some money to be received to pay off the balance. IRS dated the file forward 120 days & said they could make payments toward the balance during that time if they wanted to, or they could wait until the end of the 120 days & pay it all. There was no fee for this extended collection period, other than the normal P&I which accrued. As it turned out, the expected windfall didn't materialize so they called back about two weeks before the end of the period & explained that the money still wasn't there. At that point the IRS just converted it to a monthly payment plan extending it out over a year, and at that time charged the fee for setting up the plan.

(Previous message deleted in light of new info just discovered) Never mind, I found it on an obscure Excel help site. Thanks for all the suggestions. Just in case anyone ever needs to do this, here's how: To copy the subtotals summary: 1. Add Subtotals to the List. 2. In the Subtotal levels, click level 2. 3. Select a cell in the List, and press Ctrl+Shift+* (in Excel 2003, press this or Ctrl+A). 4. To select visible cells, press Alt+;. OR Press F5, and in the Go To dialog box, click Special. In the Go To Special dialog box, select Visible cells only and click OK. OR Press Select Visible Cells Icon. 5. Copy and paste the summary of the subtotals into a different sheet. (I would never have figured this one out - the key is to "Select Visible Cells" while in subtotals Level 2) For anyone interested, here's where I found it. There are several other good Excel tips on this site. http://www.exceltip.com/excel_tips/Excel_Subtotals/29.html

Any Excel experts out there who can help me with this one? I have a spreadsheet with only about a half-dozen columns and about 4,000 rows of data. I have it sorted by entries in one of the relevant columns and sub-totaled. I can collapse the view so that I only see the sub-totals. There are about 350 sub-total amounts. Now for the problem. I need to manipulate the table in ascending or descending order according to the sub-total amounts. A "copy" of the collapsed view followed by a "paste special - values" doesn't work - that operation copies the entire set of data. Can anyone steer me in the direction of what is probably a very simple operation? Thanks...

Agree with Old Jack. Every situation is different and needs its own analysis. As a general rule, I think a single-owner S-Corp should do a SEP in most every case. It's simple, flexible, and it can be done at very low cost. The only decision that really needs to be made is where to put the money, but that decision will have to eventually be made no matter what type of retirement plan is set up. The client can either go directly to a no-load, low-expense-ratio mutual fund with their equity portion, or they can pay an investment advisor who will frequently steer them to something that will usually sap away a large part of their earnings in fees & charges. The situaiton is much more complicated when there are employees, especially if the client wants to fund their own plan to the max but doesn't want to do the same for the employees.

Definition of a Helicopter: "A form of transportation designed to beat the air into submission. Failing that task, it will perform the exact same function on its pilot." =========================================================== Best Helicopter Joke: A helicopter was flying around above Seattle when an electrical malfunction disabled all of the aircraft's electronic navigation and communication equipment. Due to the clouds and haze the pilot could not determine his position or course to steer to the airport. The pilot saw a tall building, flew toward it, circled, drew a handwritten sign and held it in the helicopter's window. The sign said "WHERE AM I?" in large letters. People in the tall building quickly drew a large sign which said "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER" and held it in a building window. The pilot smiled, waved, looked at his map and determined the course to steer to SEATAC (Seattle/Tacoma) airport and landed safely. After they were on the ground, the co-pilot asked the pilot how the "YOU ARE IN A HELICOPTER" sign helped determine their position. The pilot responded, "I knew that had to be the Customer Service Department in the MICROSOFT building because they gave me a technically correct but completely useless reply.