Lee B

Perhaps you are using a different Schedule E than I am ? All of the Schedule E s that I prepared last year and this year still have the 1099 questions !

The explanation I have received at several tax seminars that I have attended, is that the way that the IRS reversed course on this requirement has left the question of whether owners of rental property should or should not issue 1099 s somewhat up in the air. People who say that there is no requirement are expressing their personal opinion. The advice that I have received at these classes is go ahead and issue the 1099 s since the current situation is unclear. ( Situation Normal, Right)

Copied from a NAEA Email: Karen L. Hawkins, Director, Office of Professional Responsibility, has asked us to get this information out to our members ASAP! "An email is being issued to tax preparers asking them to log into their e-services account and update their EFIN information. This email was not generated by e-services and the links provided in the email appear to be a phishing scam to capture their e-services username and password. If you receive any calls regarding this email, advise the caller not to click on the links provided, and disregard the email." Falling prey to the scam could (and probably would) cause a WORLD of hurt to the EA in question. So, stay safe, EAs! Gigi Thompson Jarvis Senior Director, Communications and Marketing NAEA

On the face of it, it doesn't look good, but it depends, how much of the profit was due to work and sweat and how much was due to return on capital. How many hours did the taxpayer actually work in the business? I had a client who was a 50 % owner in a popular bar. The other owner did all the recordkeeping and each of them took $5,000 in wages per year from a business that for years generated $ 250 K to $ 300 K annual profits. For the 8 or 9 years that I had knowledge of the situation they were never audited. I'm not citing this example as the way to do it. What I am saying is that there are a lot business owners and preparers that are willing to play audit roulette because the chances of getting caught is so low. Less than 1 % now, I believe. In the past, when I had a situation like this, I only went back to the prior year's 4th quarter payroll reports if they hadn't been filed. I always tried to fix the situation going forward.

1. As far Schedule E, the deduction of expenses are limited to income ( No Loss ) because of the facts you cite.

It's a miracle, four days after the forms were released by ATX, several lengthy phone calls with support, many email exchanges and multiple rejections of my Oregon Corporate Tax Returns they have finally been accepted. Please give me back all the hours I have wasted since Saturday ! Note: I never had to change a single field in any my corporate tax returns for them to be finally accepted !

What do you mean by unreasonable? It's a word which is imprecise.

Please correct your Efile Availability Chart: It shows that Oregon Corporate Tax Returns were released for efiling on February 13th. This is not true ! I have just talked to the Oregon Dept of Revenue and they have informed me that based on communication from ATX, that ATX will not be ready until March 2nd. In the meantime I have been racking up rejections and wasting my time while your support staff plays rope-a- dope with me. I have wasted a lot of time since Saturday trying to resolve these rejections only to find out that I was spinning my wheels ! This really makes mad !

Someone been drinking a little too much Jim Beam

Post copied from the ATX Board: IRS changed refund 8863 did not calculate correctly IRS changed client's refund because of an error on Form 8863. "The error was in the computation of the credit on Line 19 of Form 8863 and/or transfer of that amount to Line 50 on your Form 1040. Her efile was accepted on 1/23/15. Client qualifies for the American Opportunity Credit and the form looks correct ATX Reply: GMW, All you need to do is mail a copy of form 8863 with the notice the taxpayer received and the situation will be resolved. There have been a number of posts like this. The issue seems to be the mishandling by the software of the "felony question."

I don't know whether you're using Win 7 or Win 8, but if you haven't done so you should go into your system settings and turn off all energy saving settings and set the your system for max performance. Also make sure all ATX files are excluded from your firewall and your whatever security program you're using. Finally to the extent you can, reduce the number of programs you have running in the background.

Did you manually restart the server processes ?

Very good article. I am going to print it out and use as a guideline. Thanks for posting this

Just updated to 14.5, updated forms and efiled some S Corp returns Everything went very smoothly. Yea !

There have been some posts about this problem on the ATX Board. It's something that support seems to be able solve fairly quickly.

Great ! Good to hear !

I did one last Friday and it worked fine.

Everyone will still need to review their clients repair/capitalization decisions for the past 3 to 5 years in order to see if a 3115 may be needed to bring their clients into compliance, reduce their audit risk and pay the 481 (a) adjustment over 4 years without penalties and interest.

Spidell News AICPA provides hope for practitioners struggling with Form 3115 February 11, 2015 In a News Update, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) announced that the "IRS and Treasury are considering our recommendations to provide relief from the reporting requirements related to the repair regulations. We are hopeful they will release some form of relief for small businesses in the next couple of weeks." (www.aicpa.org/publications/newsletters/aicpanewsupdate/pages/20100210-specialnewsupdate.aspx) The relief the AICPA has requested includes: Make Form 3115 and the IRC §481 adjustment optional; Make the rules prospective; Accept a statement in lieu of Form 3115 to acknowledge compliance with the regulations; and Raise the de minimis safe harbor from $500 to $2,500. The AICPA advises that practitioners may consider the option of temporarily suspending all related work in hopes of IRS relief. Spidell was unable to get any confirmation of this information, but we will keep you posted as news develops on this issue

Copied from the CALT website: Security Freeze May Freeze Taxpayers Out of IRS Online Applications In the wake of numerous high-profile financial data breaches, many Americans have asked credit reporting agencies to put a security freeze on their accounts. This may cause a problem for taxpayers seeking to use IRS online applications. IRS enlists third-party credit reporting agencies to authenticate the identity of certain users when they register to use certain online services or attempt to use the service with guest access. If a security freeze has been placed on the user’s account, the taxpayer will be unable to pass the verification process when attempting to use an IRS.gov application that employs the eAuthentication system (e.g., IP PIN, Get Transcript, etc.). If you or your clients need to use one of these systems, you must contact the credit reporting agencies and ask them to temporarily remove the security freeze. This will allow you to register for an online service or use the "Guest Access" feature on IRS.gov eAuthentication systems. Once you have been successfully registered, the security freeze may be restored to the account

Issue Number: 2015-2 1. New on IRS.gov 2014 Pub 531, Reporting Tip Income 2014 Form W-4, Employee's Withholding Allowance Certificate 2014 Pub 17, Your Federal Income Tax (For Individuals) 2014 Inst W-9, Instructions for the Requestor of Form W-9, Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification 2014 Pub 15, Circular E, Employer's Tax Guide 2014 Pub, 15-B, Employer's Tax Guide to Fringe Benefits 2014 Pub 15-A, Employer's Supplemental Tax Guide (Supplement to Circular E, Employer's Tax Guide, Publication 15) 2014 Pub 15-B, Employer's Tax Guide to Fringe Benefits 2015 Pub 15, Circular E, Employer's Tax Guide 2015 Pub 15-A, Employer's Supplemental Tax Guide (Supplement to Circular E, Employer's Tax Guide, Publication 15) 2015 Pub 15-B, Employer's Tax Guide to Fringe Benefits 2014 Inst 8959, Instructions for Form 8959, Additional Medicare Tax 2014 Form W-9, Request for Taxpayer Identification Number and Certification 2015 Form W-2, Wage and Tax Statement (Info Copy Only) 2015 Form W-4P, Withholding Certificate for Pension or Annuity Payments

There are more posts with depreciation issues, for example; assets not linked to Schedule C, E , or F listed assets not rolling over etc.

There are at least a half dozen posts on the ATX Boards of users not being able to open the program since the 14.5 update. Also a couple of posts with depreciation issues since the 14.5 update. May want to hold off updating for a few days.

The two previous years a number of users had this issue. Just go into each asset and relink it to Schedule E. Hopefully this fixes the problem.

Jim, Thanks for the info. So the process is exactly what I had to do with 2013. Go to the 2014 Admin Console, Start the Servers, Wait a minute, Start ATX 2014 ( takes about a minute) Other than this annoyance, no other problems. As far as I am concerned the program is running better than it has since 2010.