mcbreck

I've never seen a minimum - you just need to pay the fee and do the CE. As I recall from my training, professors and attorneys sometimes become EAs just to show they have the knowledge without ever following through and doing tax returns.

Not that it has happened here but I love threads about how much people charge on other boards. Guy in Manhattan charging a massive sum and declaring it to all as if it is representative of the rest of the country. Another degrading people for how little they charge in Pine Bluff Arkansas compared to San Francisco. Another guy declaring their minimum is $750 because they are "experts" which implies everyone else is less than. Again, this hasn't happened in this thread but I find it hilarious on other boards.

Google is also involved. Sounds like the methods used would mean the professional software versions weren't using this but it seems there should be some clarification on that fact. I'm sure nothing will come of this but the IRS needs to take some serious action very soon. Again, doubt they will.

About 6-7 years ago I fired all the jerk clients. Really wasn't a large number but holy cow my life became more enjoyable. Ever since I have routinely eliminated jerks from my life. (Co-worker's son and wife were the most recent) Raise prices but also suggest jerks go to another firm. Local investment firm does taxes for people and fired anyone without at least $500k in investments. Their letter just said they have refocused their practice to handle certain types of clients and listed 3 firms they suggested they contact (HRB, JH and a local EA). Do it politely and give them time. When you see someone's name on an email or caller ID and your heart hurts - fire them. Life's too short for that crap.

Sister in law and BIL have a 7 acre place with 2 barn cats, a freakishly awesome dog, 2 horses, miniature donkey, 3-4 cows and multiple chickens. It's a joy visiting their home and I keep a bag of biscuits in my car just for their dog. They enjoy visiting us in the city also - see it as a big vacation. I live in the city and owned an 1870's home with this wild skylight on the third floor that shined down onto the main floor. I had a cat who would bring me those "praise me" trophies and the birds would fly around leaving blood on my third floor walls.

I don't see how buying TaxAct impacts the Drake software. Intuit has Turbotax, Lacerte, Proconnect and ProSeries. Wolters Kluwer has Tax Wise, ATX, Access and Prosystems. WK bought a few other tiny ones to boost their footprint if I recall correctly. Thompson Reuters has GoSystems and UltraTax. I would expect Drake to make another purchase down the line like TaxSlayer. I'd also expect a consumer accounting software program.

I was at my grandparent's farm (as a youth) and they had a rental home on the property. I'm sitting on the tailgate of the truck playing with a cat, their black lab is sleeping on the porch and another cat jumps up onto the porch with a dead mouse. The cat is playing with it, tossing it up into the air, rolling around with it, pouncing on it. Black lab gets up, walks over and eats the mouse. The cat is POed as the lab gives it a look as it lays back down. Lesson of the day is don't tick off a sleeping dog during his nap. Greatest days of my life were on that farm.

Status of Processing Form 1040-X, Amended Individual Tax Return: As of November 5, 2022, we had one million unprocessed Forms 1040-X. We are processing these returns in the order received and the current timeframe can be more than 20 weeks.

I've only ever had 2 people not pay me & I considered them gifts. I don't require payment to e-file as lots of clients mail me a check after pickup and that can take a full week.

All that drama and rushed training for essentially nothing.

How many does Drake allow?

Yes, why not just order them for free from the IRS? I order in June and have no problem getting them. I don't need the forms but clients sometimes want them and I have them on hand.

A Revocable Grantor Trust can get an EIN. It's not required but they can get one and voluntarily choose to file separately. I have several clients who have chosen this route.

Since they were delinquent and needed an OIC, what are the odds they spend the money if they deposit the check? I've had several clients receive checks with no explanation and we had no clue why. The IRS (or state) then asked for it (or more) back months later with no further explanation. Thankfully all were well off enough for it to not matter but these things are a nightmare scenario for most families.

It's wonderful you can retire with this market. Know this couple who retired at 55 and moved to Europe. They flew over on Jan 2nd & the peak of the market was Jan 5th. Glad they aren't my clients anymore. They are high return seekers who were big into tech so I'm guessing they are down 35-40% at this point.

On a different note: if you don't have a current occupancy permit, you aren't a landlord. Had a client years ago who kept arguing with me that he was a landlord and should be able to take deductions on his properties. Finally when I asked if he could legally rent out the property to someone to reside in it he started to see his problem. It isn't an always catchall but it helps some people see the situation a little differently. Commercial / industrial property has a different renting timeline than residential in today's world. It's common to see commercial units be vacant since Spring of 2020 and still not see a lot of activity.

Ouch that's horrific. When I started working my dad lectured me that if you ever go into a partnership with someone, demand all partners must share equally in ALL corporate benefits. He had a friend who became partner with a group of guys where one guy was 50%, the rest all added up to 50%. Every December the major partner gave himself a major bonus that cut distributive profits to almost nothing. There was nothing the other partners could do about it but quit.

The cloud has advantages, love the idea of it but my experience in practice is that it's far slower than a desktop version. Be sure and test it. I take my laptop and do taxes at people's homes, offices and farms and cloud makes that far less reliable. A company I work with just rolled out a new tech platform. It literally is 15-20 seconds to load each page. If you want to edit a page with new client data, 10-15 seconds for it to unlock that section for you to start entering and there could be 2-3 sections in one page. Mind boggling that a company thinks that is acceptable.

I'm not a bookkeeper and don't do that stuff - how much do you bill just doing a very limited number of tax returns? About 6 years ago my sister in law was looking into doing bookkeeping and we determined it was 10 hours of bookkeeping to do a rather basic tax return.

Spoke with an attorney in a similar situation about 2 weeks ago and his client received her refund 3 years after the amended return was filed. Good luck.

I downloaded via torrent Quickbooks 16 and have it installed on multiple computers. I use Medlin for his payroll and just manually enter into QB. Just like with the others having problems with older QB versions not installing, my 2012 didn't when I upgraded computers.

If there are no assets in the trust at the time of death, there is no need to file a return as there is no taxable income. There would be no need to get an EIN. Many people generate trusts and never title assets under it so it's a complete non-factor. It is possible that the trust was funded via beneficiary forms (ira).

Every time I've done an all-day tax seminar - right after lunch I always declare to never do it again. Everyone in the room is half asleep so what good is it?

On the student loan forgiveness - does anyone have a firm definition of what they mean by income? Client claimed the student as a dependent so it's based on the parent's income (that I understand). Could we file an amended return to kick her off? Is a government pension income included? My client has a $65k pension and $65k job - over the limit? Or is it taxable income which would lower her again below? Since it's a presidential order I'm guessing those haven't been firmly determined? This one is extra weird as her parents are recently divorced and the father is 100% disabled with no income. The mom helps pay his medical bills so they are NOT wealthy people. The timing of their divorce might have royally screwed them on this as it was finalized in Dec 2021.

I've yet to see anywhere that this isn't still the case.