Terry D EA

I know you're not asking for clarification but you are correct my client can prove the investment was worthless making it ordinary loss. No remaining basis as the loss is, as you say, is recognized on the partner's K-1's. Biggest thing here is me not explaining everything correctly. Thanks,

Sorry if I offended you. Certainly was not my intention to do so. I only wanted to protect my client. The scenario is not hypothetical just wrong numbers were given and the other information was somewhat vague which I realized later. Anyway, I have it figured out now.

Thanks DANRVAN, I really appreciate your responses. I tried to use figures and information that wasn't directly connected to this client. Sorry for the confusion. The real partnership interest was 50, 25, & 25. The partnership invested into another business that failed miserably, making the partnership interest worthless. This resulted in each partner's interest being worthless as well. I did find a few references in the code specifically section 165a that deals with this very scenario for the partners. Also, a lot of information under Rev. Rul. 93-80; 1993-2 C.B. 239. that includes examples and court cases. This client's attorney had provided the client with two different scenarios without mentioning any codes or code sections that determine whether the partner's abandoned interest is ordinary or capital loss. For the partnership, section II of form 4797 is to report ordinary gains/loss from business transactions. Drake provided a few check boxes such as abandoned, intangible; etc., that causes the amounts to properly flow to the partner's K-1 and showing the partner's capital account is zero. My first approach in my original post was wrong and I did not feel good about it at all for various reasons.

Are you saying the partners can't report their losses on their tax returns? The partnership cannot return any capital therefore, the partner's should be able to report their loss. Year one partnership experiences 800.00 loss in ordinary income. Their capital accounts are reduced by the loss. 2023 again small loss in ordinary income reduces the capital accounts further. The remainder of each capital account is a loss. 75,000 cash contribution - 2022 ordinary income loss $400.00 = 74,600.00 remaining capital - 2023 loss $600.00 = 74,000.00 remaining capital. partnership dissolves, partner's have ordinary loss providing no debt, no assets, no return in any form. Am I correct?

I want to add to my post. My initial thoughts was the partnership reports the loss on part II of form 4797. I would think doing so should cause the loss to flow through to the partners k-1 forms at their respective percentages. Again, please confirm.

Background - Three folks get together and form a partnership and make total contributions of $150,000.00 in 2022. Partnership invests the funds contributed into a venture (another business) with a return structure that looks favorable at the time. (I don't want to give all the details here). No income for 2022 just a loss on some operating expenses. In 2023 the venture goes out of business making the worthless. The partners lose all of their remaining capital. 2023 is the final year for the partnership. The loss experienced by the partnership is the same as the partner total remaining capital. 1. Is this reported as a capital loss by the partnership with the loss passing through to the partners. This method makes the loss a capital loss to the partners and reduces their remaining capital to zero. 2. Because the partners are walking away or abandoning their interest because it is worthless, there are no assets, no debts, none of the partners receive anything that would cause their abandoned interest to be characterized as a capital loss. Number 2 seems to me the right choice. No sale, no real disposition. Is the partnership required to report this on form 1065? If so, where? The loss to the partners I feel is reported on Sch K-1 line 11 (other income/loss) with code A. I would appreciate some help with this.

I based my response on the employee knowing the max contributions he has made. The employer would have no idea nor any reason to ask. My thinking was why would the employer contribute if they knew the employee was or would be maxed out. So forgive me for the misstatement.

Just something to add to the mix. if the employee takes a different job and has already contributed the max, then he would not be able to make any contributions for the remainder of the year. So, most of the 401 plans that are an employer "match" why would the new employer make any contributions when they should well know the employee cannot? if the employer wanted to do so out of kindness, then it should be pertinenet for them to know how much the previous employer contributed.

Efiling for 1099s opens the 10th.

Try Hiscox.

You are correct. Also correct on the different names to avoid the confusion. I do appreciate you brining this up in the beginning as it caused me to do additional research and study. Initially, I didn't have any clients who qualified for any of the ERC which is why I did not take a deep dive in the beginning. Now I have a good understanding, certainly not an expert, but enough if I by some chance someone contacts me regarding these credits.

Thanks Lion and I do agree with you, but again, I don't have all of the details to make the decision as to whether they qualified or not. The client says they did and worked with Paychex. This client for years has been straight up with everything. Matter of fact, they are no leaving Paychex because of the cost and the fact Paychex did not tell them they had to adjust the 941 (Paychex did this without informing them they learned this from me after the fact), they are part of the Paychex PEO program which costs considerably more, and they never received any information telling them they would have to amend their 1120S. I have told the client that they MUST amend the 1120S for 2020, 2021 & individual 2022. The reduction in the wages obviously affects everything. For 2021 there was a loss carryforward that will be eliminated by the adjustments. I goes without saying, the shareholder basis will be adjusted as well. The client is not happy about the fact they have to pay some significant tax after amending. But, they are still money ahead that they never had when it is all said and done. This is the irritating thing about all of the scam adds and those that were legitimate but failed to properly inform the client of everything that would take place when claiming this credit. Like us, with the EIC, I think the preparation of these credits should require documented due diligence or suffer the same disciplinary action.

I DID NOT prepare anything for the ERC. I am not amending anything with form 941. Yes, I prepared all of the forms 1120-S and had no knowledge whatsoever until October 2023 that this client worked with Paychex for the ERC. Paychex prepared the ERC, as well as any amendments. I immediately told the client they will have to amend their form 1120-S. This client is a PEO client with Paychex so all of the filings were under the Paychex EIN and not the client's. All I am doing is amending the TY 2020 and 2021 1120-S to reduce the wage deduction as a result of the ERC. I stand corrected on the use of form 5884-A. DANRVAN is correct. This client only had a reduction of gross receipts and was not forced to close operations. The confusing part of 5884-A was the 40% deduction. Below is what I finally found. Section 2301(e) of the CARES Act provides that rules similar to section 280C(a) of the Code shall apply for purposes of applying the employee retention credit. Section 280C(a) generally disallows a deduction for the portion of wages or salaries paid or incurred equal to the sum of certain credits determined for the taxable year. Accordingly, a similar deduction disallowance applies under section 2301(e) of the CARES Act with regard to the employee retention credit, such that an employer’s deduction for qualified wages, including qualified health plan expenses, is reduced by the amount of the employee retention credit. (An employer does not, however, reduce its deduction for the employer’s share of social security and Medicare taxes by any portion of the credit). It seems straight forward at this point, ex; (figures are hypothetical) the credit calculated by Paychex is $400,000.00, wages originally reported were $3,000.000.00, form 1120-S amendment is $2,600,000.00 = $3,000,000.00 - $400,000.00. This results in the shareholder having to pay a huge tax bill. However, in this case they received the refund and no I didn't know that either, they can use those funds to pay the balance due. I'm concerned about penalties and interest at this point as well and am looking into the penalty relief provisions to see if anything applies here. As I see it, the client made some mistakes. First mistake was not talking to me about this at the onset. I wouldn't have known much at the time but would have found out what I could. Once they engaged Paychex, they still should have informed me but didn't. The client trusted Paychex to provide them all of the information which they did not. Yes, this client is a good reliable client and probably got taken in by the amount of money that I am assuming was proposed to them. I appreciate all of the responses and input here. Lesson I am learning is to not trust completely some of the resources the internet can return.

I posted this question on another board and didn't get any response. I am assuming the topic is new and folks like me are just now gaining some experience with this. After several hours of research, I have come to the conclusion that amending the 1120-S for the ERC is fairly simple. In Drake, there is an input screen for form 5884-A. Two entries are required, the qualified wages the 40% amount of the qualified wages. This adjusts the payroll wages on page 1, of 1120-S and properly corrects the shareholder K-1 (in my case a single shareholder). All good so far. Another colleague working on one of these is very adamant that I should not rely on any calculations provided by a 3rd party and should start from the beginning to arrive at hopefully the same numbers. In this case Paychex prepared the ERC for this client and provided the figures. I am preparing a statement of the periods and qualified wages to attach to the return in support of the form 5884-A. Isn't there something in circular 230 that covers me on this? To me, this is the same as a client providing me a P&L and balance sheet to prepare their tax return. None of us audits the client's books or reviews them prior to preparing the tax return. I know the ERC was calculated and received, and the I am amending the tax return as required from the information the client provided. I fail to see anywhere in this situation that could constitute tax fraud, evasion, or willful negligence. What would anyone else do in this situation?

Merry Christmas to you and everyone here!

Got em! But...now you are making me check the IRS PTIN info for my CE hours and categories just to be sure.

Dennis, I am assuming you might be referring to MS OneDrive. How do you secure the data before uploading it?

I do it the same way. I am confident on the timely deposit dates. For all my payroll clients, all are monthly depositors, and all deposits are made the first week of each month to avoid any timing errors.

Yeah I forgot the TaxBook. I too have used them. I think you get like 7 courses with your subscription??? Can't remember but whatever it is, I use it. This year I accumulated 39 hours. I have two years left to renew my EA so a good start to the 72 total.

Yes, I did prepare those returns. I had no idea until recently the client had applied for the ERC. Their payroll company is Paychex which is a pain in the %^$ to work with. Their software is ridiculous to navigate. The company gave me access one year and it took me forever to find copies of the 941's that were filed. Not saying anyone has done anything wrong. I think they got the ERC retroactively which means there are some adjustments needed with the 941 and 1120S as well. I'm not sure when they got the refund check, I'm thinking sometime in 2023. The bookkeeper called me and asked me "where do we record this income?" Well, I stated it is not income per say, so create an asset account to put it in for now and leave it there until we determine how much has to be paid back due to the adjustments that need to be made. Apparently Paychex got on the contingency bandwagon. Their fees, like others, were deducted from the refund. I almost can't wait to see the P&L to see what they charged for this. Paychex is not cheap, this company has anywhere between 95 to 125 employees at any given time. Paychex charges this company in the middle five digit figures for their services annually.

Tom, I am with you. I may not hate google sheets as much now but when I first started with it, I hated it and did the same as you. The $9.95 a month for the Office 365 isn't too bad cause you can use it on five different machines. I use a laptop, and a MS Surface pro along with my desktop. I guess in a way it does pay for itself. Like kathyc2, I too have many templates setup, especially various depreciation and amortization schedules. I'll probably stay with excel.

Just wondering what folks prefer here. I am currently looking at reducing costs everywhere I can. I have used MS Office 365 for several years. Also, I pay for google suites. I have used both but sometimes question the depth of google sheets. I am an old excel guy and have used if for years. Personally, google seems to easy to share and I question the security. What are your opinions?

No, doesn't apply not farm workers <<<<<<Wages are not reduced on form 941, just the employer's deposit liability by the credit.>>>>>> Thanks for correcting me. You are correct. For form 1120S, it would have to be amended to reflect the credit amount taken against the PR liabilities as well correct?

A general random question. As I read all of the info on this credit which is overwhelming to say the least, I realize what the employer who received the credit has to do. As an example; Employer A - for tax year 2020 has qualified wages of 800,000.00. Credit is 50% so $400,000.00 in wage reduction. If employer A did not reduce the wages on form 941 for the affected periods, they must file form 941X to amend the wage deduction. Also, if Employer filed form 1120S with the full wage deduction and did not reduce the wages by the credit amount, form 1120S MUST be amended also. Am I correct in my thinking so far? I have a client that receive large amounts of the credit but were not told to reduce anything and of course, here it comes. FYI- This is a major battle with one of the national payroll processing companies. I have asked the bookkeeper to get a copy of all of the 941 forms filed and any 941X forms, ERC calculations to check everything against the tax returns for both 2020 and 2021. The bookkeeper was told 941s were not available and because they were a certain type of employer the 941 wasn't used. That blew my mind as I have no idea what the hell that means. I don't care who this employer uses or what the company classifies them as, they are not exempt from filing 941 forms. This company has over 4 mil in payroll each year. I just want to be sure my thinking so far is in the right direction as I will openly admit I am not an expert in the ERC area.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you have to renew by Jan 31st? The November 1, 2023 - January 31, 2024 renewal cycle is for SSNs ending in 7, 8, 9, or no SSN Drake, CCH, NAEA, Gleim, CPA Academy and a few others are offering CE classes. It will be a crunch to get them in by December 31. I hope you are not just starting, 72 hours is a lot.