kcjenkins

But to answer your actual question, yes, you can file the late W-2, and don't forget, farmers file a 943, rather than a 941.

Need to look at the contract;

There are always one or two of those every season, so hopefully that's your last one.

"Someone" is always full of free advice that is worth what they paid for it.

II I really admire whoever baked this one.

Thanks for posting that.

And every municipal/state retirement system I've ever seen is significantly BETTER than SS.

Throwback Thursday | The Pi Day of the Century By Katherine Schulten What will you be doing on 3/14/15 at 9:26:53? If you’re a math enthusiast, maybe you’ll be celebrating the once-a-century day when the calendar and the clock align to represent the first 10 digits of pi (3.141592653). Though we don’t think anyone in 1915 was baking pies, writing pi-ku or rapping about the number, as some do these days, no March 14 until now has been more numerically notable: As you remember from middle school geometry, pi is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, and is always the same, no matter what circle you use to compute it. It is an irrational number that never repeats, with an infinite number of decimal places — though in 2013 a researcher took it to eight quadrillion places right of the decimal. This year, the “Pi Day of the Century” will be marked in all kinds of creative ways. At the San Francisco Exploratorium, where the official celebration first began, you can participate in a pi procession and pizza pie dough tossing. If you’re an applicant to the M.I.T. class of 2019, you’ll find out at exactly 9:26 whether or not you were admitted: If you live near Princeton, N.J, you might attend their annual Pi Day festivities, which also celebrate the March 14 birthday of the longtime Princeton resident Albert Einstein. There will be pie-throwing and -eating contests, as well as an Einstein look-alike competition. And, of course, you can always buy a commemorative Pi Day 2015 T-shirt. Here are a few more ideas, from The Times and around the Web. Learning About Pi, and Pi Day, History The San Francisco Exploratorium provides a quick overview of 4,000 years of the history of the number. In 1988 a physicist there, Larry Shaw, founded March 14 as Pi Day. And in 2009 the House of Representatives passed a resolution supporting the designation. Having Fun With the Math of Pi Where would we be without Pi? What are some of its real-world applications? Try to answer these questions after doing some of the following exercises: In our 2008 lesson plan Pi Anyone? we suggest three different ways of calculating and estimating pi. The Exploratorium has a number of hands-on ideas for learning about pi, including cutting, wearing, searching, tossing and “seeing” the number. WikiHow makes this suggestion: Convert things into pi. This step is necessary for two reasons: first, to utterly confuse people who have no idea what you’re talking about, and second, to have fun seeing how many things can be referenced with pi. This will help you reach an even higher appreciation for the amazing number that is pi. Consider two approaches: Use pi to tell the time. Convert naturally circular things into radians, like the hours on the clock. Instead of it being 3 o’clock, now it’s 1/2 pi o’clock. Or, instead of it being 3 o’clock, convert the inclination of the sun into radians and describe that as the time. Simply use 3.14 as a unit of measure. Instead of being 31 years old, you are 9pi years old. With this same approach, you can find out your next pi birthday (don’t forget to celebrate it when it comes!). And the Times’s Numberplay blog has a pi machine puzzle based on a new, original and “remarkably simple” method of calculating pi that requires just two balls and a wall. Finally, PiDay.org has a list of ways teachers have celebrated Pi Day in the classroom.

Jack, while we know http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i8283.pdf is not authoritative it is still reasonable to use it's guidance.

I'm trying to imagine driving while also stabbing a cell phone, but just can't .

Yes, I'm 70 and I have days like that. Sure it's irritating, but I agree his 'about $___' is probably as good as the amounts on many a client's neatly printed page of data.

Go for it!

Hey, let's not get distracted here. Point is not why it happens, point is how to reduce the problem.

I do agree with you Margaret, I was just addressing Max's point. The problem in your case is not whether her signature would be legible, it's whether she's competent to 'attest' as the signature is intended to reflect. Hopefully you can get the son to understand that point.

IRS Readies Regulations for ABLE Accounts Washington, D.C. (March 10, 2015) By Michael Cohn The Internal Revenue Service has issued a notice in anticipation of the ABLE tax-free savings accounts that disabled Americans will soon have the ability to set up to cover expenses such as education, housing and transportation. When Congress passed a temporary extension of dozens of tax breaks last December in the Tax Increase Prevention Act of 2014, it also passed the Achieving a Better Life Experience Act, also known as the ABLE Act, which authorizes the ABLE accounts. Notice 2015-18 provides notification of a provision that the IRS expects will be included in the proposed regulations to be issued under section 529A of the Internal Revenue Code. Section 529A will permit a state (or a state agency or instrumentality) to establish and maintain a new type of tax-advantaged savings program, a qualified ABLE program, under which contributions may be made to an ABLE account that is established for the purpose of meeting the qualified disability expenses of the designated beneficiary of the account who is a resident of that state and who is disabled. The notice announces that the Treasury Department and the IRS currently anticipate issuing proposed regulations that will provide that the designated beneficiary of an ABLE account is the owner of the account. The notice also provides that, with regard to the ABLE account of a designated beneficiary who is not the person with signature authority over that account, the person with signature authority may neither have nor acquire any beneficial interest in the account and must administer the account for the benefit of the designated beneficiary. If a state does not establish and maintain its own qualified ABLE program, it may enter into a contract with another state in order to provide its residents with access to a qualified ABLE program, according to the notice. The statute directs the Treasury Secretary or his designee to issue regulations or other guidance to implement section 529A no later than June 19, 2015. Several state legislatures currently are in the process of enacting enabling legislation in order to ensure that their citizens may create ABLE accounts during 2015, according to the notice. While the Treasury Department and the IRS currently are working on section 529A guidance, they anticipate that ABLE programs may be in operation in some states before the guidance can be issued.

Yes. But hopefully they took pictures, etc, Ups the odds of an audit, but if you believe them, and they understand that fact, you should take it.

How many of you actually believe that the IRS actually looks at signatures, much less COMPARES them to prior returns, at the time of filing? I'd bet serious money that trhey never do that until/unless there is some problem with the return.

Often, the 'day trader' has no 'job', but does have a bunch of investment income, which is where the money comes from for the trading. That's where they use the losses. Those who qualify are a pretty small subset, but over the years, seemed to me that I was asked at least once a year, and often several times. I wish I'd had such a neat and comprehensive article to hand them.

I will double up on Jack's Message! For those of us in small or one person offices, especially, every time YOU take a break, REBOOT. It is amazing how much today's software keeps 'running in the background' with the aim of making changes back and forth faster. But they eat resources, and tax software, [ALL TAX SOFTWARE] requires a lot of resources. Rebooting closes all those lingering pieces of other activity, and the tax programs always run faster after a reboot. As Jack said, it is a Windows problem that has existed since WIN95.

Tax strategies for day traders Bill Bischoff Do you trade stocks more often than most people change their socks? Then you need to understand how Uncle Sam views your habit. Otherwise, come April 15, you’ll be suddenly confronted with a mountain of paperwork. And those profits? Well, they’ll seem a lot smaller once the Internal Revenue Service has taken its share. There are, however, some strategies that active investors can use to reduce their tax bills — and make life much more pleasant come tax season. Here’s what you need to know about them. Trader vs. investor In the world of taxes, “trader” and “investor” each has a special meaning that carries with it some pluses and minuses. Most individuals — even those who trade a few times a week — are, by the IRS’s definition, investors. But if you spend your days buying and selling stocks like a hedge fund manager, then you are probably a trader, a title that can save you big bucks at tax time. How? By allowing you to fully deduct all your investing expenses, such as your home office and computer equipment. So what are you, you ask, a trader or an investor? This is one of the fuzziest areas of our fuzzy tax code. “The question is clear; the answer isn't,” says an IRS spokesman. The only way to define your status is to go by the guidelines laid out in several court cases that have addressed the question. The courts say you are a trader if: You spend lots of time trading. Preferably, you don’t have a regular full-time job. (My reading is, you can also be a part-time trader, but you had better be buying and selling a handful of stocks just about every day.) You have established a regular and continuous pattern of making lots of trades (several almost every day the markets are open). Your goal is to profit from short-term market swings rather than from long-term gains or dividend income. Here’s how I think these court cases apply to the real world. Say you spend 10 hours a week trading and total about 200 sales a year, all within a few days of your purchase. In my book, you’re an investor, not a trader. You aren't spending enough time or trading often enough to satisfy the IRS. How about 20 hours a week and 1,000 short-term trades a year? I think that amount of time and trading gets you there. If you spend 30 hours a week, make 5,000 short-term trades a year and don’t have a full-time job, even the IRS should agree without a fight. If you choose, you can actually be both a trader and an investor. You must segregate your long-term holdings by identifying them as such in your records on the day you buy in. Then they won’t “taint” your trader status. Trading points If you’ve passed these mushy hurdles and qualify as a trader, here’s your reward. According to the tax law, traders are in the business of buying and selling securities. From the IRS’s perspective, you are self-employed in this activity, meaning you can deduct all your trading-related expenses on Schedule C, like any other sole proprietor. This is great, because investors have to account for these expenses on Schedule A, where they can write off only the amount that exceeds 2% of their adjusted gross income. Plus Schedule C write-offs reduce your adjusted gross income, which raises the odds that you can fully deduct all your personal exemptions and take advantage of other tax breaks that get phased out at higher levels of adjusted gross income. You can also deduct your margin account interest on Schedule C and probably take an immediate write-off for equipment used in your trading activities more than 50% of the time (computer stuff, desk, bookshelves, fax machine, etc.; it is called a Section 179 write-off). Home-office deduction? Sure, as long as you use the space regularly and exclusively for trading and the deduction doesn’t throw you into a net loss position. Finally, you don’t have to pay self-employment tax on your net profit from trading. All in all, a pretty good deal. If you’re a trader, you will still report gains and losses on Form 8949 and Schedule D, and can still deduct only $3,000 in net capital losses each year (or $1,500 if you use married filing separate status). All this makes for a pretty funky-looking tax return. Schedule C will have nothing but expenses and no income, while your trading profits (we hope) will end up on Schedule D. I recommend attaching a statement to your tax return to explain the situation. Mark-to-market traders If you qualify as a trader, the IRS has a deal for you. Under normal circumstances, when you sell a stock at a loss, you get to write off that amount. But if you buy the same stock within 30 days, before or after you sell, the IRS considers it a “wash sale” — and you have a tax accounting nightmare to deal with. Fortunately, you can become what’s called a “mark-to-market” trader, meaning that you will automatically become exempt from the wash-sale rule. Here’s how the mark-to-market rules work. On the last trading day of the year, you pretend to sell all your holdings (if any). Even though you still really hold the stocks, you book all the imaginary gains and losses as of that day for tax purposes. You then begin the new year with no unrealized gains or losses, as if you had just bought back all the shares you pretended to sell. Being a mark-to-market trader has another advantage. Normally, investors can deduct only $3,000 (or $1,500) in net capital losses in a given year. But mark-to-market traders can deduct an unlimited amount of losses, which is a plus in a really awful market or a really bad year of trading. As a mark-to-market trader you should report your gains and losses on Part II of IRS Form 4797. For more information, see IRS Revenue Procedure 99-17 in Internal Revenue Bulletin 99-7, which is available at www.irs.gov. Drowning in paper How can you possibly account for hundreds of individual trades on your tax return? After all, the IRS wants not only to know your profit or loss from each sale, but a description of the security, purchase date, cost, sales proceeds and sale date. That is what many new traders are faced with around April 15 each year. Just scrawling in your total long- and short-term gains won’t cut it with the IRS, either. The best way I’ve found to handle this mess is to buy financial software and use the feature that allows you to download trading data from online brokers. Then you can transfer all the data into your tax preparation software without breaking a sweat. The rest of us Truth be told, few people qualify as traders. If you’re an investor in the IRS’s eyes, you account for your gains and losses on Form 8949 and Schedule D, just like always. And your expenses now fall into the undesirable category of “miscellaneous itemized deductions.” You can’t claim a home-office deduction, not for this anyway, and you must depreciate equipment over several years instead of all at once. On Schedule A, your investment expenses are combined with other miscellaneous items, such as fees for tax preparation, and you can write off only the amount that exceeds 2% of your adjusted gross income.

No, I don't think so. It just defaults to landscape.

It is not for everyone, but can be a good solution for a couple or single who has most of their assets tied up in their home, and does not want to sell and move, but needs to pull out funds for their retirement needs.