Gail in Virginia

And yet, on the credit card my husband and I have where he is primary and my information (including ss# and income) was included on the original application, I am told that they cannot do anything to change something on the account without talking to him because it is his card. It is my understanding from trying to talk to them that credit cards are not considered "joint" any longer. I would not begin to try to answer this question other than to suggest you ask the credit card company.

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I think it was a good idea, but like Catherine I have been too busy to do it myself.

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There is no perfect answer. I am afraid that I agree with Joel, that we will see an upswing in "self-prepared" returns. Truthfully, those are the preparers that concern me the most now. Many people are out there preparing returns with little or no training, and then not taking credit for what they do by marking the return self-prepared. With the new testing requirements, and the new e-filing requirements, and the registration requirement (with fee!) in NY, more "preparers" may start ducking out on their responsibility to sign their returns. I think some public education and awareness would go a long way to cleaning up our profession of the few bad apples.

If member A "gifted" member b with 50% of the partnership (which seems to me the only way you could own half without any investment), wouldn't member b's basis be the same as member a's ( or the FMV at the time of the gift, whichever is less)? And in that case the distributions could be non-taxable, to the extent of basis. However, depending on the amount of the basis attributed that way, this raises the question of whether or not a gift tax return was required or filed. And I don't think a loan repayment would be considered the same thing as a guaranteed payment at all - it is a payment of principal and interest on a loan and should be treated the same whether paid to a partner or a bank.

I don't think these professions are exempt because they are considered more ethical, but rather because they have already been required to take and pass a test demonstrating their competency before they obtain their designation. Having passed the EA or CPA exam, or the bar exam, they are presumed to have demonstrated competency and have been required to take CPE ever since they were admitted to practice. There is no way to weed out in advance the unethical - they can only be pruned after they have demonstrated that they are not willing to follow ethical standards. What this test seeks to do is weed out the incompetent. I personally supported grandfathering in those with at least a few years of experience and only requiring that they take continuing education to continue practicing. But I also think that having passed the two day EA exam demonstrating a minimum knowledge of tax law, and having kept my education requirements current, I should not have to take another test just to prove I am competent to prepare tax returns. Gail Abbott, EA

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Happy New Year "Live long and prosper!"

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The form does allow you to fill out the questions that you can easily get from the tax return, save the "draft" version, and then go back and fill in the information that was not readily available from the return (or at least it did the last time I completed one.) I don't usually do a pencil copy, but instead fill out what information I have, print a copy and let the client fill in the rest. I will help them with it if they don't understand what is being asked, but I don't generally have information on their bank balances, etc. in doing their personal return.

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Fun new game for that 1 minute stress break: http://www.break.com/games/tiger-woods-wife-outrun.html

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Woo Hoo! Merry Christmas to all! I am looking forward to a break from the every day and hope that you all get to enjoy family, friends and the holiness of the season!

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If it is a continuing thing, I don't have a lot of sympathy either but we had a client that had to sell his family farm to pay for the round-the-clock help he needed to be able to stay at home. This one time event caused his medicare premiums to jump, and he really couldn't afford it - he need the money to pay the sitters. But the law is the law - nothing could be done.

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If you copy and paste the entire link, it will work. For whatever reason, the "id=98368,00.html" portion is not being included as part of the hyperlink.

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I hesitate to get involved in this, but the original owner (the lease company) originally used this vehicle as property available for lease to the taxpayer in question. So despite your quote of the code, I am not sure of the definition of original use.