JohnH

Merry Christmas to everyone. Same sentiments here, Catherine.

A cursory look at the rules tells me that a small business operating as a C corp would generally be much better off electing S corp status. A C corp earning less than $75K or so will see an increase in its tax liability since the 15% rate on the first $50K is now raised to 21%.

Nice summary. Thanks, Lynn & AbbyN

One report I saw said the individual mandate would expire in 2019, if it remains in its present form. (But maybe that's old news). In any event, as Jack says, nothing is known until the final legislation is written and signed. That won't happen until all the the various bribes & trade-offs are in place. It's not for nothing that we have the best politicians money can buy.

Doesn't make any difference to me - I still have plenty to do. A missed appointment is never time wasted in an efficient office. As for the rest of the answer, I'll just say read Catherine's response. Good business practice isn't found in policies and procedures - it lies in the ability to make wise distinctions.

Anyone who anticipates remaining in this business for many years should think seriously about the ages of their current and prospective clients, and adapt to their means of communication. It's going to be difficult to grow in the coming years unless the preparer utilizes texting, online methods, and email. It still surprises me to see that even much of the older generation has gravitated to text and email communications. And except in very rare cases, it's virtually impossible to communicate with any person under 35 in any manner other than electronically. So a practitioner who ignores this trend can most likely expect to see their client base shrink in the future. That's OK if the business plan is a glide path toward retirement, but it's not a formula for growth. As an aside, I can't imaging charging for a missed appointment. I always have enough work on my desk to occupy me whether a particular client shows up or not. If they miss an appointment, we can reschedule. Charging for missed appointments may be a good short-term ego boost, but it's seriously bad for goodwill. It's a sure fire way to drive a wedge (or maybe a stake) in the client relationship

For W-2 forms, I use Tax-Print. It's a little quirky, but it does the job. For 1099 Forms, I think 1099Express is outstanding. Have been using it for some time now. It supports seamless uploading from Excel, cost is reasonable, and support is great. YOU can pick and choose which elements of their program you want to use. Last year, they automatically filed extension requests for everyone already in their data base. I thought that was a nice touch the first year of the Jan 31 deadlines.

My approach is similar to Sara & Catherine's. I run an estimate, then add a little to it. I tell the client to expect a follow-up bill from IRS for about that amount, and to send me an email or text with the final figures. My answer is almost always "That looks right. It's a little bit less than we originally estimated, so just send in a check for $ XXX.XX and you're done."

As a matter of fairness, I think offsetting the unpaid refund against current year taxes is reasonable. (similar to the bank invoking their right of offset when someone fails to pay on a loan but also has funds on deposit in other accounts). But as a matter of practice, it wouldn't be wise. It will do nothing but add confusion to an already convoluted process and create an additional paperwork blizzard. I'm guessing it would require at least a half-dozen separate letters and maybe a couple of hours explaining things to a very confused client. I doubt most clients would be happy when they receive the bill for the extra work you'd have to do in straightening it out.

Here's your chocolate moose. Now you just need to get him in a pie crust and then into the oven.

Thankful here as well for everyone on this forum. Happy Thanksgiving, and remember to set you scales back 10 lbs tonight at 2 am..

So why aren't you playing with your grandson now, rather than spending a total waste of time writing posts saying you aren't interested in wasting time? But at least you're making me smile and laugh.

I may have run these numbers wrong, but my quick look says the 25% flat corporate tax rate would be an INCREASE for small C corporations that show a net profit of $120,000 or less. They would reach a break-even point at roughly $119,650, although the incremental savings ramp up quickly after that point. But I'm just assuming I have the correct info on the rates.

If the criterion for business use is that one's significant other won't get in your vehicle, then I'm in great shape. I can start deducting mileage on my car, because my wife absolutely refuses to ride in it.

But that $70K truck is jacked up so high it can't bang its underside on anything, and the extra-huge tires are nail proof. Plus, it has such a nice paint job that it always looks like it's in pristine condition even after being driven all over job sites - almost like it's never used for work. That's why it cost so much in the first place.

Could they be planning an endgame? Nitpicking the small stuff to wear you down, then shoot the elephant at the last minute?

I don't know much about botnets, bandwidth, VPN, plugins, and the like. But I do know Eric is probably spending money and definitely spending his time keeping our forum as safe as possible. So I decided this is a good time to hit the DONATE button (which I just did), as a way to say "Thank You, Eric".

Seems as though they are using the S-corp in an attempt to bypass socsec/med tax because the net income of the S-corp is not subject to SE taxes, However, if the owner is not receiving a salary from the S-corp which would approximate reasonable compensation for someone of his/her level of expertise, then this is potentially a big problem. You might want to have that conversation with the client and make sure they are committed to paying themselves reasonable compensation going forward. If not, then it would be wise to pass on the relationship. Whether they do anything about prior-years' returns is an open question, but you definitely should not get on board with continuing this practice (if my assumption is correct that this is what is happening).

You might want to back off for another reason or two. Being asked to recommend the choice of entity alone is reason enough.

My solution several years ago was to stop preparing returns claiming EIC. I know that isn't practical for everyone in this business or even everyone on this forum (and there's always that issue of the adult child of a regular/profitable client), but I simply started telling people who have large EIC that they needed to have a preparer with deeper pockets than I have. I usually just gave them the address of a local HRB office and tell them they will probably pay a lot more than I would have charged, but "that's life". In recent years I haven't received that many inquiries, but when someone would approach me, that's one of the first questions I'd ask. Along with whether they own any rental property, whether they use the Obamacare exchange, and whether they regularly have lots of stock/mutual fund transactions - all of which are usually deal killers.

So that would be a password password?

Can't help but wonder if IRS is throwing down the gauntlet with this announcement. They got caught in political crosshairs this year and they had to punt with an awkward policy that left everyone guessing what to do. With this announcement, they are clearly stating what they are planning to do next filing season. If the administration/Congress want IRS to do something differently, then clear direction will need to be provided. All in all, probably a smart move by IRS, and early enough for action to be taken before the filing season begins.

My grievous error has been corrected, with sincere apologies.

I agree with Judy. 2 likes and 2 laughs is more akin to an electoral vote rather than a popular vote. Don't anybody dare respond to this post. It is only in jest and it will be deleted if Judy deems it necessary.

I don't have any big-time farmers as clients, so I don't run into this type of situation. However, I agree that the lenders' practices are at the least highly suspicious. I can't recall how many times I've had to explain to clients why a bank turned them down because the bank lends money based on "ability to repay" rather than the size of the collateral. The client wants to borrow against the value of their assets, but the bank wants to see an income level sufficient to service the debt. Collateral is necessary, but it's usually the bank's fall-back position. Most banks hate to go after collateral when loan defaults. If what you describe is the norm, then it seems that banks dealing with farmers take a much different approach. The only way this guy can be continually buying new equipment is to roll over ballooning debt. One could jump to the conclusion that an underlying goal is to get possession of the land in the long run.