mcbreck

100% agree with this.

How do you know what the business is? They could be dog groomers, hairdresser, art / pottery classes. You are making lots of assumptions.

This. If someone needs to make a few payments to get paid up for the year and don't want to do an official payment plan, I give them a few blank 1040-V forms and they mail them in with payment. The IRS will eventually bill them for interest owed. It's never been a problem.

Have one today who wants me to file an extension and the only contact we've ever had was 9 months ago a meeting about whether I could do their tax return. Haven't heard from them before today and she obviously doesn't comprehend what an extension means. She's wondering if it means she gets a 6 month extension on making estimated tax payments.

All those water lines being replaced is similar to having all the wiring replaced in a home - capitalized. I'm willing to go out on the line and say that if you asked the plumber (or whoever) if they improved the quality of the system so that it could handle greater water flow or pressure in the future (new / bigger pump) - they would say yes. That's an improvement and capitalized. But on the other hand if you expense it as a repair - I doubt it will get flagged by anyone as it would take a real investigation to prove it is false. (In my area, if you don't have water then you aren't getting an occupancy permit. They aren't running a business out of the home without water.) Back in the early 80's my dad's sales company was audited. The only thing they found was that the work done to a printer should have been capitalized instead of calling it a repair because it increased the quality of the printer. Nobody could say how it was increased (it was a high speed dot matrix printer) but the IRS deemed it to be so.

If they are able to take their phone call about a 20 year old tax return - he's in hell.

When you see someone's name pop up on caller ID and your heart drops, fire them. Life's too short to be miserable.

Had a client today who "lost" $1.5m. Not that he lost $1.5 million in the stock market drop, he couldn't remember where it was invested to get me a 1099. When I asked if he still had healthcare through the marketplace he responded with a "you need that form every year?". Had a lady call a few weeks ago and said she was ready to get her taxes done and I could pick up the docs on the way home. I get there, we meet in the lobby of her building and I ask "do you have some forms for me?" Her answer was No and thought I could figure something out. Son of a client has learned from his secretary that his father's nursing home expenses were deductible, he declares we weren't claiming those and he wanted me to file amended returns as soon as possible for the last several years and I'd be doing it for free as I had failed to do my job. His sister (on the email chain) responds "We've been doing that for the last 10 years but thanks for getting involved now." That was a fun day. Had a couple three weeks ago who had a household income of $350k and owed $3,700 on their federal and the husband didn't know how they were going to pay it. He wanted to know about how to set up a payment plan and the wife was steaming mad. When I mentioned they'd be getting about $2,000 back from the state and would almost certainly have the refund before April 15th, he still wasn't 100% sure they'd have the funds and wanted information on making payments.

I can't even imagine a world where my clients could download their tax returns without me printing it. Even people who I think it should be a no-brainer get hung up on it and almost always it's because their corporate networks won't allow them to download. Um, use your personal computer at home? A brokerage firm sent me their 1099s via a portal and the broker said more than 50% of their clients couldn't figure it out. All you had to do was put in your email address and last name. Have a guy who I sent everything through the portal 2x and he asked for it a third time to be sent via email. Finally his business partner texted me and confided he knew the guy was scared of the portal. I knew he hadn't downloaded the items but at least try?

What I like about Brother is that you can buy refilled cartridges on Amazon for a very cheap amount. Some of the makers have utilized tech to try and prevent that. It also will hit 100k pages by the end of next week. I'm thinking about moving my color printer to the side and using a mono / black only printer for general usage when I don't need color. I'd like to limp this color print along until retirement.

ohhhh - claim number is different. I'll bet you are correct. Thank you very much.

Yes - this is important.

Client receives her normal SSA 1099. Let's say box 5 says $33,000 (says checks received is $30k which she believes to be correct). She gets a second one that says it is an updated benefit that includes any repayments in December and replaces any previous statement. This says Box 3 $10k, repaid $10k and box 5 is $0. She knows nothing of repaying the IRS (she is self employed and 68 years old but the profit is only $2k every year). You'd think she'd know but she doesn't and isn't checking. Who wouldn't know they repaid $10k? How am I supposed to enter that?

I always looked at it that if you rent long term, it's schedule E unless you provide services. If you rent for less than 7 days at a time, it's Schedule C regardless of whether extensive services are performed. The IRS rule for rental activity states: Exceptions. For purposes of this paragraph (e)(3), an activity involving the use of tangible property is not a rental activity for a taxable year if for such taxable year—(A)The average period of customer use for such property is seven days or less The second exception is (B) The average period of customer use for such property is 30 days or less, and significant personal services (within the meaning of paragraph (e)(3)(iv) of this section) are provided by or on behalf of the owner of the property in connection with making the property available for use by customers The first exception literally says nothing about services being performed and is solely a time exception. I can't imagine very many WANT to put their rentals on Schedule C as it subjects them to SE tax. It is an exception which requires it.

Per the University of Illinois tax school: Short-Term Rentals Short-term rentals primarily relate to stays of less than seven days on average. Short-term rentals aren’t reported on Schedule E. In fact, IRS Publication 527 states that taxpayers should use Schedule C to report rental transactions if the taxpayer provides “substantial services in conjunction with the property or the rental is a part of a trade or business as a real estate dealer.” Substantial services are tasks that are related to the convenience of the tenant, like cleaning and linen changes. If the taxpayer meets these requirements, there is the potential for more deductions associated with the rental; however, net profits are generally subject to self-employment taxes.

Are you doing this on Schedule E instead of Schedule C? I've always done short term rentals on Schedule C as they require extensive regular work or you have to pay someone to do that work. In my experience people with Airbnb type rentals do a LOT of work or are paying someone to do that work - it's not a passive business.

RBC isn't the problem - they are using the data given to them by the Depository Trust Company which process all the payments. A lot of times it's dividends being reclassified as non-taxable distributions and that impacts other totals (or the reverse). A dividend is required to come from profits of the company and if they declare a loss, the dividend pay get classified as a non-dividend payment. Some REITS technically lose money but pay massive dividends and those are where the problems exist (usually).

I'm waiting on a few transcripts. Think this is delaying them?

If you are giving lessons, yes being a member of the PGA is a business expense as it's essentially a license. My golf pro was thru the PGA and that's how I booked the lesson. What do you mean by a golf event? Is it an advertising event?

On the 8889 are you choosing single coverage or family coverage? If you put in $8,200 and choose single coverage it is going to be a taxable event as they over contributed. Otherwise the code W amount is the only figure to worry about unless they wrote a personal check to add funds to the account.

I have several clients who are dealing with mild dementia / chemo brain fog / TIAs and it has me worried about my future. I was thinking today - how quickly could you get tax season done if everyone delivered everything correctly tomorrow morning? Wouldn't that be wonderful? One thing I'm reminded of every tax season is that we can choose to be happy or unhappy - it's completely up to us. I had meetings with three ladies this weekend who have very little to be happy about in life right now and were pure joys to spend a 1/2 an hour each talking with. I had a meeting last Thursday with a lady who has ever reason in the world to be happy and she was completely miserable and her negativity was just soul sucking. It's a choice we all have.

I went to a local IRS office to get something about 15 years ago (last time I went) and you had to go through a scanner just to get into the building (like the airport). It wasn't a sole IRS office building. I always wondered if that was appealing or unappealing to the rest of the tenants. I would think it would be a pia.

Per the AP: "The IRS is drafting plans to cut as much as half of its 90,000-person workforce". It also sounds like the major cuts are coming in May, not now. When we get the IRS letters in August, we are going to be spending some serious time on hold.

Even if you delete them, I think Google keeps all that for a period of time. If we aren't trusting Google, we can't trust ANY VOIP services and a LOT of us are in trouble. Are we pretending the IRS is using copper wire phones still? JMO but I'd trust Google's security more than I trust the blue post office box outside my office. As for the OP I am willing at accept documents in pretty much any fashion they want to deliver. I've yet to be able to open something to view that they've sent me. I just don't want items trickling into the office. Give them to me all at once or something is going to be lost.

De Minimis (Imagine announcing at the beginning or end of a gig "We are De Minimus!")