JohnH

Yes, if the vendor is not a corporation. Get a W-9 from the vendor.

Just keeping you on your toes. We need to stay alert this time of year...

Mike: Maybe not so unwieldy at an attendance figure of around 100 or so. In some churches, that would still only work out to around 20-30 giving records they would have to keep. :(

Quickbooks does a terrible job of tracking contributions. It's cumbersome and sloppy. This is true even for the Non-Profit version. Here are three possible choices - each has its strengths and weaknesses. 1) Elexio - my church uses this one 2) Fellowship One - my church is considering changing to this one 3) Power Church - I have limited experience with this one, but it seems to have lots of features.

Good students are the product of good teachers.

I can sense we're going off on a tangent.

Rita: You're off just a tiny bit, but I'm betting you got that percentage from a Pi Chart.

Most of them will balk if you tell them you would need to file an extension and may not be able to get to it until Aug or Sep. And you'd still need to invoice them for your work & in turn pay them for whatever they want to sell you (if you happen to need it).

I'm not familar with all the details, but here's a link to a very thorough discussion of the credit and how the qualifying process works. This source seems to say there are no exceptions to the "initial qualifying" process. You may have a situation in which the NCDOR contact gave out incorrect info (not unheard of at all). http://www.autismsociety-nc.org/index.php/presets/public-policy/north-carolina-education-tax-credit-questions-and-answers the part that caught my attention was this: Q: Can I claim this credit on my taxes if my child is already in a private school or being home schooled? A: Currently, to initially qualify for the credit, the child must have been in a public school for the two semesters prior to the passage of the law in July of 2011, or simply the previous two semesters for those seeking to qualify for the tax credit after July of 2011. Those who were in public school in the spring of 2011 for less than 70 days would not qualify for the credit. The law does not have any provisions for exceptions to this qualification.

I have AVG, but it didn't stop them. I installed and ran Malwarebytes (freee version) and it looks like it solved the problem. Thanks for the suggestion.

Well, technically you won't be making a profit until you get past "Tax Freedom Day", but that's another subject entirely.

I started getting them yesterday as well.

"We don’t mean to be driving preparers out of the preparation of EITC refunds. And there’s been a trend in that direction. There’s a somewhat smaller percentage of those returns that are now coming in through preparers as opposed to people doing them themselves, and we certainly didn’t intend to have preparers decide that it’s not worth the effort. " That horse is already out of the barn.

The interesting thing about the "Free Spousal Benefit" is that it truly is free. Everything else about delayed benefits is actuarily sound right down to the month. But the Free Spousal Benefit violates all those rules. I really don't understand the logic behind it, but it's there for the taking.

I don't need to know WHEN I'm going to die. I'd like to know WHERE I'm going to die. Then I'd just make sure I never go there...

I never paid much attention to Social Security strategies until the past 4-5 years, as I began to approach time to make decisions. Any time a client would ask for advice, I'd tell them they need to speak with a financial advisor or do their own research. I've slowly come to the realization that most people don't bother - they just listen to whomever happens to cross their path. And I've come to realize that MANY people make major mistakes when it comes time to begin receiving benefits. It's good you and your husband are investigating it yourselves.

I think it has to be done by calling Social Security Admin. My situation is somewhat similar to yours. But if your husband begins drawing Free Spousal Benefit before he reaches age 66, there is a partially ofsetting reduction of some sort in the long run. You will definitely want to check out the financial implications of that. As I understand it, the strategy is age-neutral and the FSB is truly free only if the spouse applying for the Free Spousal Benefit has also reached full retirement age. In my case, my wife is already receiving benefits at full retirement age. So I will receive my Age-66 Full-Retirement benefit for the next 5 months. Then (assuming I don't develop any life-shortening health issues during this time), I will suspend my own filing and apply for the spousal benefit. A little quirk here is that I have to repay all that I have received in benefits during the 5 months and then wait for them to send me a make-up check for the lower benefit, but that's basically just a timing issue. That puts me back in the pool for the increasing benefit between age 66 and 70 (about an 8% return on invested funds, by most estimates). My monthly benefit decreases by $400 during this time, but for each year I wait, the ultimate monthly benefit increase by over $100/month. So as I see it, this distills down to the equivalent of paying $4,800 for an annuity which will pay me $100/month for as long as I live. (It's actually better than that, because I'd have to earn over $7,000 to have enough after-tax money to fund the $4,800 annuity) If I die within 4 years, Social Security Admin wins because I left money on the table. If I live beyond 4 yrs, I win. I'm planning to win. If you and your husband do this, I think the most important thing is to be sure the person you speak with at SSA fully understands the strategy. Keep in mind that the Free Spousal Benefit can only be claimed for a maximum of 6 months back - two people I spoke with at SSA didn't know that. Here's a link to a sort discussion on this, but it isn't comprehensive. http://www.socialsecuritychoices.com/info/freespousal.php

Thanks for the birthday wishes. This is the big 66th, and now it's time to begin drawing some of that Social Security. So thanks to all of you who are helping fund a small part of my retirement benefit. (Although at the rate I'm still working, I'm only costing you a part of it. According to my figures, I'm continuing to pay in SocSec taxes about 40% of what I'm receiving in benefits.) BTW, if anyone is approaching retirement or knows someone who is, be sure to mention that they should look into the "Free Spousal Benefit". That, coupled with "File and Suspend", can be a great tool for increasing long-term retirement income. In certain situations, it is almost a no-brainer, but retirement planners and even Social Security consultants often misunderstand it or miss it altogether.

I am sorry for your losses and for the pressures you are under. Several others have already mentioned extensions, and I will add a strong encouragement for you to use that as your relief valve. If you simply tell your clients of your situation and that you must file extensions, most of them will surprise you with how readily they agree to it. (at least, the good clients will understand). You should tell them that the last thing they want is to have you trying to finish their work under pressure of deadlines and all the other personal things you are dealing with right now. Their financial situation is too important for the work to be prepared by a tired, distracted, overwhelmed preparer being ruled by an arbitrary Apr 15 deadline. If they don't trust your judgment in this situation, then there is no trust in the business relationship at all. Filing the extension doesn't mean their work will wait until Oct 15 - it simply means you may not be able to get their return finished until Apr 20, Apr 30, May 10, May 20, etc. Taking Apr 15 off the table as a meaningful date will provide you tremendous relief and will enable you to be more effective at this critical time. Be proactive - make filing the extension a normal part of your intake process. You should start filing extensions soon - maybe as early as March 1. Discuss this with the client when they bring their info to you; don't wait until the first of April to address this. The good clients will understand, and the lousy, insensitive clients will show their true colors. Both ways, you win.

I've just recently been working with QB online, getting familar with it and kicking the tires. It has quite a few limitations, but overall i'm impressed. I think intuit will continue to improve it and clean up its weaknesses. If you decide to abandon it later, you could dump all the data into an excel spreadsheet and then move it into whatever you like. based on what you described, I think QB online would work well for you and your client. only one fee necessary, as the client would simply give you the username and password, then either of you can sign on at ay time from anywhere. Since the client mainly wants to use it to write checks, this would give you a low-key means to test drive QB online yourself.

H-m-m. For me, that train has already left the station.

That happened to me twice - with the same client. (With one intervening year). You'd think one of us would have leaned. Now every year I ask him "are you SURE you didn't add any dependents last year?"

So here is my first question. I bought Office for Mac, so I'm able to do word processing and excel seamlessly between the Mac and PC without an emulator. At this point, I'm not planning to prepare tax returns on the Mac book so there's no need to enable it to run my tax software. (That will change when I buy the desktop Mac mini, but only for that machine) Bottom line is I don't see any reason to install a PC emulator on the MacBook . The really good emulators seem to require a lot of memory, so I'm not sure I want to commit large chunks of Memory to that task. Am I missing something in this approach? BTW, on another note the Magic Mouse is truly revolutionary. One of the coolest things I've ever seen for any computer.

I'd tell the client to keep the $20 and forget about it. If IRS ever discovers their mistake, they will ask for the money back. Or,if the client wants me to straighten it out, I will write all the letters they want at $50 each. They can decide when enough is enough.

Thanks. I'll check on it, because I'm sure not happy with some aspects of Big Bank (enter name here).