Medlin Software, Dennis

I use voipo.com for "virtual" numbers for fax, text, and voicemail. The fax process works well, as do all of their functions.

"The only way this would make sense" Add never insert or access any removable media. I hear this one often "I do not connect to the internet, I just use CD/USB media to install software and move data to another computer, so I cannot get anything nefarious."

Whether or not you agree, the maker of W7 says it is unsafe. You are likely beholden to keep data as safe as reasonably possible, and possibly to an even higher standard. Defense is expensive, and using a known unsafe OS is impossible to defend, even if it is just one machine connected to your network. You would not likely find an arbiter, judge, or jury which could be convinced W7 is safe. Much cheaper to stay current. I doubt you will find any tax software vendor which will give you explicit instructions to use a known unsafe setup. If you do, document their instructions, and pass it by your E&O insurer for approval.

"and they will be available to help out with any questions for the first two years" I am not sure what help could be provided past encouragement to stay in yr 1, unless you are using them in a quasi or actual employee manner. Yr 1 retention may be somewhat higher, as many will simply not want to make the effort to go elsewhere. Year 2 may be more important long for long term retention. I would consider 50% of year 1 and 50% of year 2 as my likely top amount, and would not want an all yr 1 based figure. I would want some sort of no interest payment plan over enough years to make the work pay for my time even in yr 1. Likely, a business transfer/succession attorney's retainer can include helping with negotiation.

Yep, the IRS had to say the existing law is the law :).

Personally, I switched to a surface pro as my main computer. It has a setting to keep the battery at 50% for situations where it remains plugged in all the time. Gives me several hours after a power outage to get my generator running. Sleep/suspend modes works well for overnight.

Likely sign and submit a simple document to the county (or whatever entity handles the property records). Probably a net zero taxes and all other issues. Dealing with two estates at present. Title of property has one name, passed away in '71, the other passed away about 5 years ago...

Your address can be randomly spammed, it can be grabbed from someone's address book, and so on. (AOL was notorious for having their address books compromised.) For business use, there really is no perfect filtering, other than manually setting up filters, and reviewing your spam folder. If you need the easiest solution, gmail likely has the best filters (you can wash your mail through them via forwarding if you do not normally use their system). I used to use mailwasher, and it is a decent product. Caveat, gmail, and other online filters, do read your messages, and use the content to make money (serve ads).

Not quite to that point myself, but I suspect there are cases where a grandparent would not be willing to give money to the parent directly, which is how it appears it should be done rather than grandparents contribute directly to parents 529. For us, we are appreciative of the ABLE account aspect of 529, and our main focus is figuring out how to max that out before our time is done. Can the plan be transferred from the grandparent to the parent? In our case, child attended community college, pay as you go, then transferred. We borrowed what we could, but only had to pay 2 years worth. Might have worked for a grandparent 529, if the ability to pay out during those last year or two would not be a negative sum process. Of course, he is now looking at med school, if it is cost effective compared to his current career path. FAFSA planning is good practice for medicaid and SS planning (I suppose)... and for many, needs to be a service bought. What I found online: Change account owner. If the 529 plan allows, the grandparent can change the account owner to the parent. This will minimize the reduction in financial aid the next time you file a FAFSA. Check to see if your state will recapture state income tax benefits if you change the account owner. Rollover 529 plan funds. Grandparents can roll over a year's worth of funds to a parent-owned 529 plan. If the rollover occurs after the FAFSA is filed, the funds won't be reported as an asset on the FAFSA (assuming the funds are spent before the next FAFSA is filed). Distributions will not affect aid eligibility because the 529 plan is owned by the parent. It’s important to note, the parent-owned 529 plan should be opened in the same state as the grandparent-owned 529 plan to avoid recapture rules when funds are rolled over to a different state’s 529 plan. Take a distribution later. If the student will graduate in four years, grandparents can wait until January 1 of the student's second semester of their sophomore year in college to take a distribution, after the student has completed his/her last FAFSA. This is because the FAFSA uses the prior-prior year’s income and tax information to calculate eligibility. If the student will graduate in five years, families should wait until January 1 of the student’s junior year to take a distribution.

Did my forgiveness app yesterday (lender portal). It was relatively easy, and I uploaded plenty of documentation to show enough proper spend. Lender sent off for SBA approval already.

I discussed the issue with myself yesterday (a reminder really), as I was filling out my forgiveness app. It was a nice break from chuckling at how the employee SS deferral keeps costing more for any employer (and now the employees who "benefited") who elected that option (having to issue W2, then W2C).

Thus the rub. At present, merely an interest free loan to employees, at great cost to employers, with zero benefit to employers. Even if there is some sort of forgiveness, it still does not benefit employers, other than watching their bank account lose, so there is no (now un) common sense reason for an employer to defer. Employers are already dealing with "on the fly" changes, such as FFCRA, retention credit, and PPP. Another change with only a negative revenue result was not accepted by the vast majority of employers. Out of all my customers, only one is known to have deferred, and it is a client of one of my customers who deferred even after being shown the cost and risk.

Small separate desk for the 9-5 work. Can be in the same room as the home office space, but the sqft must not be counted towards the home office usage. Employer should be willing to provide compensation for use of your space and utilities, hopefully accountable basis, or enough to cover your costs and the increased tax (if treated as additional wages). Or remove the sqft shared with the 9-5 use, and only claim the remaining amount (assuming there is some space not shared). If you can document less home office use, you may have a number to show your employer as to your "cost" of the space you are providing.

If the employer is not already doing business in MO, the employer will need to register in MO, get an SEIN, MO UI issues, WC insurance, local taxes if any, business license for the state/locality, etc. In other words, the employer is setting up business in MO, and needs to act accordingly, the length of time is not material. The business owner should have no concern with the employee's personal taxes, and withhold based on the employer's obligations, even if it means more than one state withholding based on location worked. The business owner should consider the costs of the new location before accepting the work (if they are new to the location). Covid has caused some states to create or lengthen work from home exceptions, and many employers simply ignore work from home in another jurisdiction situations anyway, but this sounds like a physical work location change into a new state for the employer.

I suspect you cannot allocate the same physical space to more than one business, unless you allocate the usage. Could it be logical :), as if you were renting a warehouse, and using it for two businesses, you would be allocating costs based on a formula, such as SqFt. I would not have a personal issue with using the deduction for the 9-5, since it is now your primary location for that business.

The employer seems to have already made their decision. It is well established the employer cannot provide money to the employee tax free, no matter what term they use, unless it is to reimburse a direct expense or something else accountable in nature. The likely push back (and mostly the direction I was commenting on) will be from the employees, if any or all of them realize the 20 is taxable remuneration. Dealing with getting monthly or other time frequency allowed accountable reports from 8 employees is not free. Likely the employees will do their part on company time, and the employee will have to beg for then review and store the records. Does not seem like the employer wants to provide the phones, which I think would invoke the non accountable aspect. The one caveat for the employer to consider is what the 20 really costs. Multiply by 7.65% (assuming none earn over the SS limit), and their WC rate. For most, would not be additional UI taxable wages, but possible for a lower wage worker in a high UI wage base state. The reality is, a large number of employers will "reimburse" incorrectly, calling it a stipend or some other term, and will not report it as remuneration. Unless someone inquires, it will never be noticed, or penalized, as a separate issue, since the amount is likely not going to cause a significant "profit" for an auditing agency. I still see employers who do things like pay "rent" for tool or vehicle use, and issue a 1099 to those employees. The employee's tax preparer will not likely notice, as the amount is not likely going to be on a W2, and (most) employees should not be getting a 1099.

Storage devices will fail shortly after start of service, or after many years of service, if they fail. I don't trust new ones until about 90 days of use, and replace every 3 or 4 years. Usual in service failures can be detected and managed by the drive's software, and you will not even notice. In the old days, one would run a scanning program from time to time, which would move data from suspect areas, then mark those areas as bad (not to be used). Likely still the case that all drives come with locked out bad areas, and those will gain over time, but not really affecting use or reliability. The failures I see are human (hiring someone to "move" to a new computer, and they fail), power outages, and allowing some sort of nefarious item to cause problems. Normal power on and off has some small amount of chance of causing issues.

For two lines, a dual sim phone is much easier. The problem is, in the US, these types of phones are hard to come by, and have some issues. For instance, google's cell service is one where you can get and easily use a dual sim phone, but your second line will not be "captive" so certain carriers will not allow certain things. If you use a phone captive to a major, to get all the services, then they likely prevent use of the second sim, even if the phone has it. In my case, the problem was the second line would not use wifi when cell service was not available. I need a major for best connectivity, and the other major for times when the other has no service (when traveling). Two phones (actually three) is what I end up with to accomplish what I want. One for each major, and a google cell as a normally "suspended" alternative. Creative call forwarding settings means whatever phone I have on with reception reaches me. (I also carry a SpotX satellite handheld, so I can text message out when there is no cell coverage.) On the OP, it always makes me smile when such a small change to taxable income causes so much kerfuffle. Most TP's who ask are not in a high enough bracket where the extra taxable covers the time spent researching. Employer can make it easy by a taxable addition, say for the desired amount plus 10%. As someone who has two family members who will eventually depend for a large part of their ongoing income based on my SS numbers, anything which can maximize taxable pay up to the SS limit is not a bad thing.

From the payroll side. Draw could have more than one meaning. Could be an advance against wages, would be withdrawal of (hopefully) profit by owner. Assuming the intent/requirement is to be paid as an employee, then if there are funds available, employee(s) (owner or not) need to be paid at least minimum wage for all time worked. Owner/employees need to meet the reasonable wage parameters. Pay frequency must meet state regulations (if any), so monthly may or may not be an option. If this is the first paycheck the business is to create, then there needs to be consideration to the other issues, such as making sure a UI account is in place, WC insurance, payroll posters in place, W4, I9, etc. Given the knowledge funds will be short, I would suggest not holding any withheld taxes, and depositing with every payroll. (Good advice for most businesses, since there is little to gain on the float, much to lose on not remitting on time, and reconciliation costs are less.) <soapbox>Big miss for many owner/employees is remembering to treat the employee part of the process as if it was a stranger and comply with all regulations for any employee. No "I want to withhold this", and instead, withhold based on the last valid W4 received. No "pay themselves whenever and whatever they want, but collect time card information, pay as often as required via the posted pay cycle the business has, and for at least minimum wage - more if possible to meed reasonableness "tests". None of the one big paycheck a quarter or year shenanigans - since there will likely be use of the money (withdrawals) during the entire year. Interestingly, the owner/employee who does not do the above is usually not caught by a tax agency (assuming reasonable taxes are paid in some form), but are "caught" when they want or need to sell, or if they want or need to borrow against business or against income and struggle to quickly fudge up the books to show the proper results.</soapbox> If the funds run out, then the business needs to obtain more funds, or lay off the employees. (Owner/employees can sometimes claim UI.)

I am sure many lessons We are fairly like minded, which made the working relationship both easy and hard. The big lesson he shared with me is there is no such thing as an "accounting emergency". I have tried to apply this to as many things as possible, the "not an emergency" principle.

Me too. I see footnotes most often in email, about privacy and such things. Funny thing is, unless sent via some sort of scrambled secure email, the email must be considered public, so such notice is moot. It is public knowledge email providers, such as gmail, scan the content (to serve ads / make money), and "security/spam" vendors who do the same. Sometimes I ask those who send messages with such footnotes if they are aware any message they want to cover by privacy regs (230?) must be send scrambled and secure... and more often than not, they had not considered sending email via normal channels is not secure or private.

Ant that, my friends, is how Medlin Software was born in the late 70's early 80's. Jerry had an accounting franchise, and wrote his own programs to save time (handle more clients). He shared his programs with others in the same line of work, and so on and so on...

The IRS will throw a wide net, and see who fail to wiggle out. I have been subpoenaed merely because I provide payroll software for others to use, and the case had nothing to do with payroll (it was tax prep fraud, where the preparer was faking returns after the fact, and collecting refunds in the names of their clients). The IRS found my software on one of the computers... There are those who are paid to really manage payroll, and thus, openly accept liability. They usually do nothing without first having the funds available, deposit every payroll, and properly limit exposure. There are those who only do calculations and provide unsigned reports, sort of a grey market. Then there are the rest, who likely do not realize their liability. Whether or not someone is eventually held liable, defense is not free!

What always strikes me is how the seemingly smallest thing can affect one's life. One of our kids had an inkling to go one way with his career, which said career is gone until at least the middle of 2021, and instead took a liking to an internship he was doing, and has become a medical researcher - at present working with COVID patients. He is considering the MD route if he can find someone or something which will pay his way (he refuses to be a freshly minted MD with 20 years of work to pay his med school debt). When I look back, I see a few key twists in my life choices as well. Hindsight and all that...

The SBA can release all the forms they wish. What matters to the recipients is what the lending institution uses... which like the application, may have more required items than an SBA designed form. The "experts" still say to wait, as they believe there will be more changes, possibly a plain no form required forgiveness below a certain threshold.