jklcpa

jshtax, please check into the proper handling of these expenditures under the new repair regs. I don't have time right now to look into it fully, but I remember that this was addressed within the new regs. I quick google search turned up this that I cut from another site, but you should read up on whether this made it to the final regs: Casualty loss rules. The 2008 proposed regulations required capitalization of any repair or replacement costs for property for which a casualty loss has been taken (the "casualty loss rule"). The new regulations retain this rule, based on the premise that taxpayers must capitalize the cost of acquiring new property. The replacement of property damaged in a casualty may involve the replacement or restoration of the entire property or components of that property. In either event, the damaged part of the property is treated as retired, the basis attributable to the damaged part is removed, and the damaged part is restored or replaced. Thus, costs to restore or replace the portion of property for which basis has been recovered is analogous to the costs of acquiring new property and must be treated as capital expenditures.

I had a corrected 1099 from First Clearing (a Wells Fargo advisor account) with divs, int, oid, and muni interest. The change was a very small difference in the muni interest that had no effect on the federal return, and this person is a FL resident, so no amendment is needed. I was breathing a sigh of relief when I saw what the change was because this is one of my larger individual returns. I have another return that's been completed for weeks now, and the client and I agreed to meet in April to file it because of one year when she received 3 separate corrections to her 1099s from her brokerage account. We caught 2 of them and then filed with the final corrected one arriving around 4/7 that year! She opted to not amend because the difference in tax was about $20 and she decided to let the IRS bill her for it. She's never received a bill yet, and that was 4-5 years ago, I think.

thanks for the laugh

No deduction.

Superceding an earlier filing was discussed in >this topic, but MaxW pointed out that it really doesn't apply to 1040s, although KC said she'd used this technique without issues in the past. Personally, I'd file the 1040X with -0- entered as paid with the original return, just as the OP asked.

It will be embarrassing, but it's good that you caught this. If it wasn't paid and your client's are at all computer savvy, they can make the payment very easily on DE's website by entering the same data that you are trying so hard to do through your program. It is a very easy process, but make sure that they do it a day ahead of when they want the payment made because the site won't allow the payment date to be the day the site is accessed, unless that has recently changed. At least the DE payment isn't due until 4/30/15, so you have those extra 2 weeks to deal with this. https://dorweb.revenue.delaware.gov/scripts/olp/olp.dll/indpay

Joan, you ARE correct. If RMDs have started and IRA goes to a non-spouse individual, it is the longer of either the deceased owner's lifespan or the that of the beneficiary. I stand corrected.

I'll be right up to see you! Be there in an hour or so.

I agree with Joan, except that it mom had already started receiving RMDs, then the son's distributions would have been based on mom's age and not the son's. On the surface it sounds like poor advice from the attorney because the value of that IRA was then included in the estate that might have incurred more in inheritance taxes, and also because the attorney was paid more if he is like most that I've seen that charge a % of the estate's value for handling the work.

I'm sorry for the loss of your friend, Jack, and for his battling cancer multiple times. I hope that happier memories of Bill will soon replace the grief you are now feeling.

It is with OneDesk. Not 10 minutes ago I e-filed a joint return with TP DOD in July, 2014 and it went through and was accepted without a hitch. I guess I've been lucky to have never had a return reject when a death is reported. I have one other return this year for a single deceased woman, a zero balance due return, that her sister will sign as executrix. I also preparer the sister's return and plan to e-file the return for the deceased while she is here in my office just in case there is a problem.

Now that Marco has his answer, I'll tell that when I read the title I thought a doctor's visit might be in order for the client's STD. We've had stranger posts....

As a supervisor/manager, I was in charge of screening resumes, making calls and handling interviews in 2 different firms when it was time to hire. All applicants were college graduates with at least a BS in accounting, some were CPAs or CPA candidates. In those that we hired, I saw everything from incompetence, inattention to detail, drug use during the day, psychological problems, belligerence, tardiness, and lackadaisical attitude just to name some of the problems. Some were good people that ended up being successful in a more structured environment in a corporate accounting dept, but they were not cut out for public accounting with the challenges it presents. A few also left accounting completely, and one of the more outgoing fellows has made out well working in outside sales. I agree with Ron that it is part of the society we live in today. One of our best and hardest working gals started out as our data entry person that didn't have any degree or formal training but had lots of common sense. She probably could have done some of our bookkeeping and reconciliations for clients, but she was busy enough with the computer work and loved it. She helped see that firm through going from outside processing of returns to bringing it all in-house along with all of the data entry for our bookkeeping work. She is now my client, is in her late 60s, and you should see the package of tax documents she puts together for me. Other than the income side that comes from the outside reporting through 1099s, she has her all of her disbursements summarized on a spreadsheet and all of the deductions tied in. It's beautiful. Freedom, I'd start the hiring process a lot earlier next year. Most firms around here have their staffing in place by November at the latest so that the new people are up to speed when the season starts. It also gives time to find out who's going to work out and just who isn't cutting it.

I've looked at Drake's input and at the old ATX input, and I don't see anywhere to even indicate that the dependent parent has died. The only thing I see is in ATX that asks if a dependent child was born and died in the year and does not have a SSN. Is there really an input in OneDesk that asks if the dependent (parent) died? You are asking about the client's return itself and not the 1040 return of the deceased, correct?

I've seen others mention that same error number when withholding was missing from the W-2G for MS gambling activity. I think it's weird that the same error code is used for a variety of different pieces of missing information. Can you override the MS e-file info form within the return itself to include your email, if that is what the problem is?

Terry, I called Keystone Collection and confirmed that the out-of-state credit should be based on the full rate for this township is 1.25%, as I thought, and to not limit the credit by excluding the portion of that tax rate that is the school district component. I've had 2 frustrating convos with Drake support. First the rep told me a could override the rate globally for that municipality. The rate is correct and no override is needed. Next, she said Drake monitors rates, and maybe the rate has changed. Uh no, at the end of March 2015, PA isn't going to be changing the 2014 rates!!!!!! Then she said that I could override the rate on only that TPs return. The rate shown is correct, only the credit is wrong! Then she said I could override the credit.. Right, I tried that before I ever called, and overriding the credit deletes their worksheet so that it won't print at all. Then she said I could override the rate on the credit worksheet. Nope, doing that cause the incorrect credit to still be shown on the return, and 2 worksheets are created, both wrong!!!!! Then she said I should send their PA team suggestions to improve next year.. Uh lady, I don't mean to be rude, but I'm trying to get a lousy 2 page form completed that I could have finished by hand in about 2 minutes. I don't have time to teach your PA programmers or repeat myself for the 3rd or 4 time about these errors. It worked fine last year, why'd ya have to mess with it????!!!!! So my plan is to override the credit amount to correct the main form and print it out. Then I'll override the worksheet amount and print one worksheet that is correct. Paper file the stupid little form. Now back to the grind.

Yes Tom, I realize that, I was only answering about the SIMPLE because someone else mentioned it and it isn't even possible to have that for 2014 anyway. SEP is the better choice for your client, as long as the company has a profit that allows for the contribution. i do have 2 clients where the simple is the better choice because the owners don't want to cover all of their employees. One of them didn't believe me that the simple would be better than a 401K in their case. This one client chose the 401K that first year because they thought that they'd be able to contribute the higher limits only to be told that their contribution for the highly compensated owners was severely limited because the plan was top-heavy. The 2nd year went with the simple.

I could be wrong here, but with a SEP the % contribution to the SEP can't discriminate and must be the same for all employees including him, so if the business has a loss, he can't contribute to the SEP for this year for anyone. A SIMPLE would eliminate this problem and the wife could elect to contribute any percentage of her salary up to 100% of it, and is not affected by the company's profit or loss situation. Wife could also get the employer match. However, this isn't available to this taxpayer for the 2014 year because SIMPLEs must be set up no later than 10/1 for that tax year, and technically the employee portion of the contributions must be made no later than 30 days after the end of the month the deferral was made. The employer match can be paid later, I believe up until the due date of the return.

Yes, the whole loss shows on the 1040 and then you calc the NOL and can carry that back 2 years or elect to only carry it forward.

The question is really if the school would still consider this child an enrolled student for the month of May since this child stopped attending in May. It is possible that this child will be considered a student for the full semester after a certain date (where the student may not drop or change courses) and the fact that the student stopped attending and didn't complete the course may be irrelevant. I think KC had the right idea to check with the school or its website for its policy of uncompleted courses and when the person ceases to be a student.

Yes, during the period between 1/1 and 4/15 of each year, taxpayers can choose which year the contribution is for. Since they maxed out the contribution for 2014, the Jan 2015 should be designated for 2015.

Obviously I don't use this program, but is the error because you are trying to have the direct debit for DE the same as the filing date. If paying electronically on DE's website, it requires that the date be the following day, and it won't let you use the current day's date, so maybe that is the problem and not the software itself. Also, my DE returns have been taking at least a day to process and receive acks back. Have you tried entering a date for the DE payment that is a couple of days in the future? Just guessing here.

I agree, and from what the OP wrote, wife will file because of the unemployment income, but her penalty for lack of insurance will either be much lower or eliminated entirely. Run the returns both ways because filing MFJ even with the penalty included may still give the overall lower tax compared to each filing MFS. The OP didn't provide enough info about the return to make that determination.

Terry, your question about the learning curve is hard to answer. I didn't have much trouble at all once I figured out where the screens were and how the program doesn't require or show certain information on the screens. It had input for only what is needed and nothing more. What helped me the most was checking the conversions and doing a few simple returns over again that I'd already done in ATX and comparing the results. Drake offers case studies and practice returns for the users to work through too. I didn't have time to use those, and didn't feel the need either. Some of the input screens look very similar in layout to the forms itself, such as the W-2 input screen, while others look nothing at all like the forms. If you aren't dependent on forms-based input and having to see the live return on the screen all the time while you are working, I think you will be fine with it. If you are the type of preparer that wants or needs the actual form to be constantly updated while you are working on it, then maybe it isn't for you. Personally, I think that is a crutch that is best avoided. If you know what you are doing and how the item should affect the return, you will be alright using Drake. Remember I switched early on during the season, and I was comfortable with it by the time the real onslaught hit me. It seemed like an easy season, and I felt that it made my work easier and faster, especially with out-of-state credits. It handled most of those automatically without much additional input from me, and that was something that took a lot more of my time in the past with ATX because none of it was automatic when it came to the N/R DE returns for PA residents. I also have taken advantage of their pdf print function, document manager and scan functions to go paperless. Their manager allows for controlling the scanner from within that, remembers common names of files at the users choosing, and allows for fast duplex scanning too. All of that has saved a lot of time and resources for my little practice. It does take some getting used to and learning where things are located. If you are going to look at Drake, I'd suggest going to one of their presentations and getting the free trial version of the software to play with after the season ends. Some love it and some hate it.

The method of splitting the figures depends on why it needs allocating. There are various scenarios in the 8962 instructions for this. Which one of those is your client's situation?