Medlin Software, Dennis

(now UN)Common sense rarely prevails... Interesting how a broker can require an agent to work mandatory floor time, in person, during designated hours, and not be an employee (at least for those hours), and the broker has operational control and shares profit with their employees agents.

"too stupid to have that feature." Wow, candid answer at its worst. As a programmer, who also does support, rule 1 is the end user will do something they are not supposed to do. Rule 2, is you will spend the bulk of your time in a vain attempt to prevent rule 1. I answer that inquiry, if this is the proper case, with something along the lines of "the tax agency requires the full SSN on that particular form, we are not allowed to truncate or mask". When pressed, I will mention many tax forms contain a vendor code, and if submitted, and the vendor did not comply with the requirements, not only will the TP get fine, so will the vendor, and the vendor can have all their forms refused if it causes a large number of manual handling by the tax agency. In real use, I am certain things get masked by "printing" to a PDF, then editing before printing to paper, or by making a copy with a sticky note over the items to be masked.

Maybe the handlers (do the handlers change, or is the same small group really in control of politics? Maybe I do not really want to know...) of those we elect are wising up too, and trying a new sales pitch... It would be fun if they had to drink what they sell (think VitaMeataVegamin).

There are other states with no separate W4, or allow the federal W$ to work for both. Could be part of the reason the IRS decided to create calculations not requiring a W4 change. For many years, we have suggested having a separate W4 type form for federal and state, even if not required. Much easier for the employer in the long run. There are states which allow a deduction for federal tax withheld. It will be interesting to see if any change their calculations, or just take the windfall.

My prediction of almost instant notice 1036 failed... My guess is reworking to not need a new W4 is the delay. ANYTHING which makes an employee net pay less than expected will cause push back to the employer. Since the "news" keeps mentioning how employees will see more net pay, suggestions to employers such as posting a copy of the IRS notice may save the employer some time, as well as lost productivity. Personally, I would only post the IRS statements, verbatim, with no comments added by the employer (which is what I am suggesting to my customers). Also check for statements from the state, in case the state (such as ND) is tied to FWH calculations.

I bet within a day (working day) of the signature, the IRS will release new withholding calculations, like happened at least one other time the rules were changed late in the year. The IRS already likely has people, if not directly ordered, wisely reviewing and preparing, just like some here choose to do. For the common folk, the withholding changes are what they wait for (and what the President keeps touting - paycheck changes). The rest can be worked through. Those that have means to shuffle income and expenses, are wisely looking at what will likely pass, and will have a signature (or not) by the end of the week. That leaves a few working days to shuffle. There was, today I believe, a procedural fix, which was likely the last Dem grasp at straws for their next campaign literature. I have seen nothing about any possible last minute issue. Also, the ability of McCain to go home, rather than stay, likely tells the outcome will not require his vote, or the VP vote. But, anything can happen, even just before signing, or just after, so every day is a new adventure. The interesting part is the daily questions I get asking why "I" do not already know the 2018 withholding calculations.

"it is impossible to pay the tax on New Years Day since it is a legal holiday." A check can be used, with a check date of 1/1. Or if online, payment can be done (or maybe scheduled for) 1/1. For the possible rule change, for this one, I look at the intent - what the politicians likely intended. The intent seems to be to keep people who have the means to, from prepaying to squeeze in more deductions before the new limit kicks in. I have faint memory of a talking head pointing out this item was revenue positive, on purpose, to "pay" for cuts elsewhere.

As usual, a gift of continued full employment for those who have to manage what those we elect regurgitate.

Abby, I get it. I have been dealing with this for years. I know the rule only applies to the W2, and the instructions for 941 allow them not to match (I always remain open to being proven wrong). So instead of defending the rules, I also allow those who insist to alter their 941 if they wish to, in spite of not one person has ever shown me, nor have I ever found, any direction from the IRS do do so. My point is since there is no direction requiring altering the 941, doing so is actually wrong, although clearly what many prefer to do, believing having matching 941/W2 figures is required, or more important, than not adding figures when it is not required. Since there is no direction requiring it to be added to a 941, no one knows when to add it, every Q, as paid or as earned, or as a lump amount on one Q form... In my case, those who are insistent, are asking for some way to make the 941/W2's match, and since the question is never asked until Q4, we allow them to alter their Q4 941. It is one of those things which has "come to life", just like the annoying receipt of 1099's by those who were not required to receive them, because it is easier for the sender to blindly send to all, versus figuring out if the recipient is subject to 1099 reporting, or was even paid beyond the threshold. I have to personally deal with the unneeded 1099's myself. If I was worried that the IRS receiving an unneeded 1099 was an issue, I would go crazy! It is for a substantial amount my wife is paid, for remaining home to care for our disabled daughter. By law, it is not taxable income, and she had to sign a notice to the entity paying, that it was not taxable, but still comes the 1099. It makes my wife nervous every year, but the IRS has yet to come calling. Same for a state which recently asked for something to be done on a W2. It was a request, impossible to do (a long description, in a short space, in a large font). Some took this "request" as a requirement. In that case, I had to stick to the rules, and explain why, since meeting the request is physically not possible, given the space on the W2. The request had NOTHING to do with tax collection or reporting, it was merely a misguided way to try to get taxpayers to not complain to the tax agency, when they cannot read the small writing required to fit what the tax agency wants to fit in the little box! -- "If the amounts don't agree, you may be contacted by the IRS or the Social Security Administration (SSA)." (Does not say they must or are required to agree) "When there are discrepancies between Forms 941 or Form 944 filed with the IRS and Forms W-2 and W-3 filed with the SSA, the IRS must contact you to resolve the discrepancies." (Still does not say they must agree) Here is the "winner": "Amounts reported on Forms W-2, W-3, and Forms 941 or Form 944 may not match for valid reasons. For example, if you withheld any Additional Medicare Tax from your employee’s wages, the amount of Medicare tax that is reported on Forms 941, line 5c, or Form 944, line 4c, won’t be twice the amount of the Medicare tax withheld that is reported in box 6 of Form W-3. If they don't match, you should determine the reasons they’re valid. Keep your reconciliation so you’ll have a record of why amounts didn't match in case there are inquiries from the IRS or the SSA."

No one knows, until it is official. Skimming one version (479 pages) for grins, there is at least one item pertaining to 2015...

The only regulation for reporting the 2% shareholder insurance has to do with W2 reporting. Some claim it must also be on a 940 and 941, but I have never seen such official instruction. rfassett agrees with me, and the 941 instructions - the instructions say the 941's and W2 should match, but they do not have to. The one caveat is one should keep notes as to why they do not match.

I advise my customers NEVER to give tax advice to their employees (even if they are in the tax prep business, and the employee would want to be their client, I would still say stay clear of becoming their employee's tax expert). Given what has been published, not changing a W4 might lead to federal over withholding rather than under (less exempt wages and less tax rate). Certain states are more of a worry, depending on how they incorporated the federal calculations into their own. Of course, the personal situation (itemize or not for instance) alters this greatly.

As frustrated as I am, frustration = lifetime income potential... Personally, what to do in the next few weeks is clear, and fortunately, easy. I do not have others relying on my advice for pay... For my customers, the daily issue is WHEN will the politicians make their decisions, so they can stop worrying about what to do for their first payroll for 2018. I did see the first (at least in the news feeds I read) mention of the federal "changes" causing problems for a number of states. I warned my customers of this already...

Awesome, and I bet you could paste my photo there at any life stage... A couple look like my kidney stone dance, one could be my face when drinking yet another cup of water (to prevent #1), and the last, I don't always have to put on shoes, so I get out of practice It is actually a real issue, as I am so used to being barefoot, I can catch a shoe on the stairs since the shoe is longer than my bare foot. Have to remember to use the railing and go slower.

Gail, it is a long running (makes our kids cringe) joke in my house that I always wonder, out loud, why a close to me physic storefront needs to post hours and have a neon open sign. My figuring is the signs are telling me to look elsewhere, since the location in question cannot figure out when I will be coming in... which to date, is never. --- I am in the "it ain't nothing until it is something" camp. Just lost a customer who insisted they had a need to prepare paychecks for the first two months of 2018, for their clients with salaried employees, since their checks are "always the same". They demanded it was a bug, not being able to calculate 2018 already - but would probably be the first in line to attack, should I do so and guess wrong. Experience tells me there will likely be some sort of decision just before Christmas (politically beneficial), but it also tells me there very well could be a "keep using 2017 calculations 'till we make a decision" Christmas present, as we have seen before. The interesting part is how states will handle any "new" movement in the federal calculations - the states which use the federal figure as their own standard deduction amount, and the states which use the calculated FWH in their own calculations. Could be some new mid year or last minute state changes, at least from the states whose revenue stream would be cut by an unexpected change in FWH calculations.

Or contact a Greyhound rescue group near you! I personally am part of a Greyhound rescue group. Besides the usual volunteer tasks, I have the pleasure (and pain) of picking up newly released former racers from Caliente MX. Of course, my last trip was cancelled, since the van was a victim of the Tubbs fire in Santa Rosa. (A replacement has been found, so we are again ready to go when the next batch of dogs becomes available for pickup). The two, so far, we have kept for ourselves are sleeping near me now... one was 5 1/2 when we got her, able to survive over 400 races (that we know of) with no injuries, and in some cases, in 110f heat of the now closed Tucson track. She had been shipped cross country twice, as she was fairly good when she was young The other, Bella, was smart enough not to be so good at racing, and was able to get out just after her 2nd birthday. She is now 9. Gracie is in the foreground. She is the one with so many races. The tongue hanging out is her trademark. Since she was not freed until so late, her teeth were in extra poor condition when we got her. Despite valiant attempts, it became proper, for her sake, to take out what was left of her 42 teeth (all dogs have 42 teeth to start with). Around town, she actually has a fan club of sorts, and gets recognized. We take her to meet and greets, so many people meet and fall in love with her. (Note, I smudged her collar because it has our personal cell phone on it.) Gracie is now 11, and acts, like her servant, not a day over 2... If you note the motor home as my member picture, when we got it, the first thing I did was take out the dinette, to make floor space for the dog beds... Happy DOGS, happy life! (My wife approved it as well :))

This issue will become common - unfortunately - for many near us. Those that had fire damage will be getting revised tax bills. Gripes me the local news keeps talking about a zero amount, when the truth is the zero amount will only apply to the improvements lost. Those not aware will get more pain, when they see their tax bill only cut in roughly half, as their land is probably more valuable or close to the improvements (like mine). Thankfully our assessor is good, and will no doubt correct the bad information before the bills are revised.

Not that it matters, but this made me look at my tax bill again. CA, Prop 13, bought in 1994. Probably will rent it out in a few years. My Land figure is currently .45 of the gross taxable.

Yes. The issue for me, and probably Eric, are bots not actual people. With a small amount of effort, bots can be blocked. Many bots are run on US system, since there are many hosts who care not about anything but sales. I actually block certain ranges, which are controlled by certain US hosting companies, because they sell/resell to easily identifiable people/companies who are only using the service to scrape/spam,look for exploits. IP blocking is only one of many steps one needs to take to try to keep safe, and in Eric's case, keep bandwidth wasters to a minimum.

"CPU cycles" That is exactly what I try to preserve... I show the IP on the "blocked" page, cover a few reasons why they are being blocked, and that they can send an email message, including their IP address, asking for access. You will get some spam from that page, but those are easy to catch. I also have a stock reply for those messages, asking for more information, which bots will not likely reply to. Many of the blocked items I use are not IP based, they are for bots, such as non us search engines, MJ12, nutch, libwww, etc. Also a few SEO "companies" who are constantly pounding away to gain data to try to sell as SEO improvement data...

It has been a LONG time, but IIRC, you do not even need to VPN. There are browsers/extensions which let you choose the country IP shown. Used it during the 2008 Olympics, when a local young man we know was competing. Only way to see live coverage of all rounds of the event.

The online software thing is always a quandary. We get asked about it from time to time. Given there is no 100% access, many are not comfortable with SaS for things like their payroll. (There have been outages for more than 24 hours - I got calls from non customers asking what they should do because Intuit was down!) There are even a few locations where the "privacy" regulations essentially prohibit employers from having employee data out of their control/locality (although I suspect the rule is plain ignored). On the other hand, having data out of people's hands is many times safer, although access is not really improved, since one could use remote software to access your desktop. Data entry and processing speed can also crawl while waiting for online back and forth. Cost of SaS is an issue. One cannot get data access and storage online for free, so the customer has to pay somehow. Either as a per use item (which also adds cost for management) or at some sort of fixed rate, large enough to cover the average customer usage (and maybe more than you actually use). One aspect of security is to be a small fish. SaS, ESPECIALLY payroll, is a HUGE fish, and something nefarious types are certainly constantly trying to exploit. So having your desktop be the place holding your software and data, behind even just a fair security setup, is exponentially less likely to be compromised. Knowing what I do about at least one major tax prep company, I would never use a tax prep person or company who uses SaS or a corp online system.

In the US ranges, there are also certain ranges - generally hosts friendly to spam - which I block. Also block many of the Amazon ranges, since they generate a large amount of non human traffic, and since my product is not designed for something like an AWS virtual computer. I am willing to share my current list if you would like to review it.

This is something I deal with as well. I block for certain countries. It does take some manual handling (not just using an IP list service), since some desired users will have non US IP addresses for various reasons. For instance, I have a customer who lives abroad for 1/2 of the year. When blocked, I show a special page, with contact info, so those who are human, and actually customers, can send me an email with their IP address. Some on the northern border will have a Canadian IP address, some on the southern border will have a Mexican IP address. Some may have randomly placed IP addresses, such as when a VPN or other masking service is in use (have one customer who uses a non US IP s they can stream videos - such as TV sports feeds - which are blocked for those in the US).