Eric

Sorry about the downtime. A MySQL database table crashed, and had to be repaired. Should be all good now.

I've cleaned dozens family and friends' computers all running a wide array of antivirus/antimalware/security software. I have yet to find a any security software that could protect people from downloading and installing random wallpaper applications, or weather alert applications, or free solitaire and pinball games. Usually it's not viruses, it's just adware on top of webpage redirects and fake "you have a virus" popups compounded until the computer becomes unusable. I guess what I'm saying is... if you just do work on your computer and you don't fart around looking for free time wasters to install, then you're doing better than about 85% of the population.

Please, do not try to cover my entire hosting bill, that's crazy. This site uses 10-12% of the server's CPU, and a smaller fraction of the bandwidth/RAM/disk space. It's not the only website on my server--it shares resources with a couple dozen other websites that I'm paid to host and maintain. I'm coming out ahead, and this forum pays for the resources it uses and then some. If anyone donates twice, I'll issue a refund.

You folks are way too generous. The site consumes about 10-12% of the CPU on my server, and donations generally cover about 1/3 of my annual hosting bill. I think I may use part of the donations to buy a model rocket for my kids for Easter, along with electronics bits and pieces to build a fancy launch controller. 4 years old might be a little too young to learn the basics of microcontroller programming, but we can start with circuits, switches, and lighting up LEDs

Thank you all very much!

Even if someone is completely honest, it seems like there are so many weird issues that are entirely situational. Claim the stairs if you use them to get to your office, for example. The Chimney is probably okay if it's attached to the furnace to heat the whole home. These aren't details that your average taxpayer is going to think about bringing up.

Is it even worth tracking the improvements, though? I mean, lets say for the sake of argument (and because it's true) that I really don't care for keeping track of this stuff, and the only way I would ever do it is for some substantial financial benefit... and even substantial financial benefit is really just barely enough to get me to keep track of the money I blow on this money pit of a house. As far as I can tell, there isn't much reason to, unless as Terry D pointed out, the IRS changes the 121 exclusion rules. EDIT: And do you folks have lengthy interviews with your clients about these things? I imagine it's necessary. Of all the people I've talked to who have a Home Office, none of them seem to care about whether the expenses they're claiming are valid, and most of them are not.

Alright, I'm feeling better about this now, thank you for the clarification. Still gonna drink though.

And things like the roof/siding are not considered repairs, correct? These are home improvements? Meaning depreciable, and not expenses?

That makes sense. The chimney is for the furnace. But the confusing part for me is still determining what is a whole-house repair (expense), and what is a whole house improvement (depreciable).

General repairs are also listed as indirect expenses and Deductible based on the percentage of your home used for business. I have receipts and totals for specific jobs, like the chimney, and materials and labor broken down by project.

Alright, this is the last newbie tax question from me, I know you folks are busy. This year, we spent a small fortune doing work to our 150-year-old home. I have a home office, it meets all of the requirements, and it's 13% of our house's square footage. It seems to me that the bulk of the money we spent on the house isn't going to help out our tax situation, since things like a new roof, siding, insulation, plumbing, electrical, etc are considered home improvements, and not repairs. And as I understand it, "improvements" add to the basis, which is basically worthless, while "repairs" are expenses. What if we replaced an old water softener? What if the brick chimney was rebuilt from the roof up, and then a stainless liner was added? What if the electrical service wasn't to code, and we moved it to the front of the house from the back? What if the stairs were all wonky and we shimmed them all to make them level and consistent in height? In some rooms we patched and painted existing drywall. Sounds like a repair. In other rooms we gutted down to the studs and put up new drywall. Sounds like an improvement. Are any of these repairs, or are they all improvements? Is it just me and my non-tax-person-noodle-brain, or is this whole thing incredibly wishy-washy and open to interpretation? That's how it feels, and I don't like it. Numbers are supposed to be easy, not nebulous and fluffy. It's a perversion of mathematics. Screw this, I'm doing shots.

There was a link from that page: https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/teacher That's where the $5000 came from, and she met all of the requirements (had to, in order to get the money to begin with). So based on that, plus Bart's suggestion that it's not taxable, and the fact that there is no tax information related to it on the lender's site... I'm going with that, and it'll be one of the few times I am pleasantly surprised while I do my return. Thank you both!

Please forgive my non-tax-person tax question. My wife had $5000 knocked off her student loans in 2015, but we never received any tax information related to it. I had assumed that it was taxable income, but even logging into the Navient site didn't produce any documents other than the usual 1098-E. So I started looking around, and have found this chunk of text often copied and re-posted on different sites: That seems awfully vague to me, but alright. It was a teacher loan forgiveness program, and she is a teacher. She has been a teacher since she graduated more than 10 years ago. One of the stipulations for the program was that she had to have been teaching for 5 years or more. Should I do anything with this $5000 on our tax return?

Also, my apologies to Rita. I believe I deleted her post from the thread earlier. You can still see it quoted in mine though! (sorry) I'm terrible at multi tasking. Nobody this scattered should have this much control over a website. Good thing I don't run a cloud storage service.

My password data (a single encrypted file, in my case) is part of my backups. In the unlikely event that the software breaks and ruins the data file, I can pull it from a backup and open it with a previous version off the software... or a new version after the bug has been corrected. But to extend your question further, theoretically, an update to your tax software could destroy all of your tax data. An update to Windows could destroy everything on your computer. It'd really suck if it happened, but it's not very likely.

Every time some high profile website gets their (unencrypted, tsk tsk) user/pass/account database hacked/stolen, it's interesting to see just how bad the passwords are. http://arstechnica.com/security/2015/09/new-stats-show-ashley-madison-passwords-are-just-as-weak-as-all-the-rest/

Those email addresses are always great to see on a resume

There are two types of passwords I recommend that all of my clients use for the admin panel for their website. A hand full of random common words separated by underscores/hyphens/special characters. See this XKCD comic for an explanation. These are the default passwords I create for new accounts. They're somewhat possible to remember, they're perfectly secure, and fun to come up with. Like rambunctious-jellyfish_pineapple-eater! or travelmug-handicapped-platypus-ransom An 18 character string of gibberish, random numbers, special characters, and mixed case letters. I recommend an encrypted password database for anyone going this route, because they're impossible to remember. Lots of good applications out there to help you manage your secure passwords, varying in price and features (autofill browser extensions, multi-device sync, etc) Keepass 1Password Dashlane LastPass I've got more than 300 unique passwords to keep track of, I can't imagine trying to keep them straight without some kind of software to organize and remember them for me.

I think it's still considered somewhat experimental, and only officially supported on their Nexus line of phones, as far as I know. I think that's why you have to request an invite, because it's still kind of in "beta".

I bought a Nexus 6 the day they went on sale, and would really like to give Project Fi a try, but I live in the middle of nowhere, with almost no TMobile service and zero Sprint service. And the latency on my home internet is terrible. I wish I could have the internet connectivity that comes along with being near civilization, but without all of the people. Nexus phones are an Android line of cell phones that runs plain vanilla Android without any carrier or manufacturer garbage on them, and are supported by Google. Google partners with different manufacturers to make a new phone or two every year. Project Fi is a cell phone service and a Google initiative that allows your phone to switch seamlessly between T-Mobile and Sprint networks as well as Wifi. The price is decent too... Unfortunately where I live, if you want reliable service, Verizon Wireless is the only option. https://fi.google.com https://store.google.com/category/phones

Are you a fellow Nexus fan? Edit: I only ask because after some brief stalking, it looks like you're a Project Fi user. I'm envious.

I think this has more to do with the announcements Microsoft made at CES about the work they've done to improve efficiency and performance with new generations of Intel processors. It sounds to me that they're saying that they won't back port those advancements to Windows 7 from Windows 10, but that shouldn't be a surprise. My guess is that Windows 7 will continue to work on the new chipsets, but you won't get all of the fancy optimization that come baked into the latest version. Intel provides the drivers for their chipsets, and it's up to Intel which operating systems they want to support, not Microsoft.

If your computer is sporadically rebooting, chances are you're getting a blue screen. Here's how to keep your computer from automatically rebooting, so that you can write down the information in the error, and then google it, hopefully pointing you toward a possible solution http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/help-troubleshoot-the-blue-screen-of-death-by-preventing-automatic-reboot/

Double check that the post you think you made is actually there in that original thread. If you typed out a reply but then didn't post it, the forum sometimes attempts to remember what you had been typing so it doesn't get lost in the case that you navigate away from the page without posting. Once you verify that the post is there, go ahead and make your new thread in the main forum. Nothing you do at that point will affect an unrelated reply to a different thread. If I misunderstood the problem, let me know.