joanmcq

How much you are charged depends on what type of work you do as well as the amount of coverage. If you do financial statements, its more. If you use engagement letters, I think you get a discount. Etc, etc.

Mine is $675 for 500,000/1,000,000. Philadelphia Ins. Co. I think I pay too much for my lil practice (just me) and am way overinsured. I tried to lower it a bit last year, but they didn't do it. I don't have a lot of income, but have a lot of stuff, and I hate the thought of a lawsuit. People are too litigious these days. IMHO, anyone that doesn't have E&O is insane.

No trustee ever has basis information. Every IRA distribution has 'taxable amount not determined' on it. How would a trustee know what was on your tax return? I've seen a lot of people with basis in their IRAs. People that max out all other available retirement plans and want to contribute more (and have the funds to do so).

I just updated, and there is a new version of the 5405 that allows efile (at least for the payback). So update, and try again. Now i'm going to try to send returns since most of you have said its going smoothly.

They do have a lot of agents working on EITC fraud. But the extent of the fraud is huge, and the audits are time-consuming and a royal pain. and getting the money back is like getting said blood from said turnip. Last year NY audited their EIC (and a lot of other) returns BEFORE sending out refunds. Of course they were broke and this allowed them to delay refunds for 4-9 months. lol. and caught a lot of stuff that shouldn't be refunded. Canada does a lot of pre-audits. The feds are hamstrung by the requirement to get refunds out as fast as possible; on one hand you have people saying 'get the money into the hands of people who need it', and on the other hand 'audit the basterds! fraud, fraud, fraud!' I agree with getting welfare out of the hands of the IRS. I'm sure the IRS would be fine with that.

Tom, that was exactly what I was getting at. Each day's wins go on the 1040, & the losses on the Sch A. I think we were misunderstanding each other. There were several definitions of a 'session'. For example, if you go to another casino, even if not cashing out, it's another session. A different game, like going from slots to craps, is a session. etc, etc. The coin-in, coin-out statements, which is what I've seen from casinos, aren't proof. The gambler's log is what is accepted.

I think they have it on the back of the W-2....

Where was that load of crap from? Doesn't know much about the nondeductibility of cruise travel, for instance. Any list like that is bad because people will think all of them apply to all of them. Hiring your kids only works if you are a sole proprietor, but since they think everyone should be a corp...

Tom, that wasn't the gist of the case. The netting for each 'session' determined whether there was a net win or loss for the day. I would guess that this couple has more 'wins' than they are claiming. You can still claim another session's losses against the wins, but a gambling log is required to verify wins vs. losses. Again, good luck on them having any verification.

Just paper file the return. Both of the claimants will get letters asking to prove they are entitled to the exemptions, and at that time you will address the issue. Make sure you inform the client as to the paperwork, etc. necessary to prove the kids were living with him/supported by him. the tiebreaker rules will come into play, and he will win.

Its still current. No gain, loss, or recapture until the house is sold.

The national debt is the result of a more than a decade of 'trickle down' not stimulating the econonmy as well as continuing to put major expenditures on the national credit card rather than on a pay as you go system. The tax cuts put through in the early Bush years (and Regan years) resulted in exactly what the neo-cons wanted; a starving of the government until the burden of debt forced the cuts in the social safety net that they wanted, which is now coming to pass. Either we, in the 90% (last time I checked I wasn't in the top 10 or even 20% even though I do have more net wealth than most in my income level) make up for the inequities passed 10 years ago by passing higher taxes as well as budget cuts to get the system back on track, or we in the 90% will suffer like hasn't happened since the Great Depression. Unfortunately, most of what passes for 'education' on tax matters is dictated by those who benefit, and geared towards hoodwinking those who will suffer. See 'tea party'. Since when did education & intellect (read 'elite' by the mass right wing media) become a dirty word?

I'm doing it the same as Terry. I wouldn't tell clients to go away.

my biggest beef is with the client letter. There is a huge bunch of crap that prints with it, and I only want the privacy statement for the client copy and cover sheet for preparer's copy (the client copy prints with a big watermark...). I like the client copy to have the watermark as well as the SSN & bank info supressed.

ISOs shouldn't be reported on the W-2 in the year issued; they create AMT, but not regular income tax. They are likely qualified sales by now (I'm a bit rusty on options at this point), and would only generate capital gain. Both the Quickfinders and Tax Book have good sections on the treatment of options.

I'm looking into a website and client portal.

did you check your email spam folder? I've heard that is where a lot of them ended up.

My problem with the birthday posts is that if there are a lot of them, an answer to a question or a thread I am following can get quickly pushed to page 2, where it is much more likely to be overlooked. This wasn't a problem in the past, but lately it seems most of the first page was birthdays. The other non-tax stuff is not quite as frequent. a thread starting off as tax and ending as banter isn't an issue IMHO.

I had one of these last year and did a subtraction for the excess taxable wages on line 21 w/a note in the return. Haven't heard anything yet.

I've already rolled over my own return just to see what forms were available as well as another for which I needed to do an end-of-year projection. The forms are there, just marked 'draft' including the 1040.

That much I know; ex-pats aren't big voters and no-one but tax people commented on that one in the first place. But I'm trying to get the guy an amount he can take out by year end and not have to pay US tax, and I can tell him another 10K is cool, but not much more than that. And, of course, currency conversion rates come into the mix too. I can't do the calc by hand...the currency stuff I can manange; capital gains calcs with the exclusion, I can't.

Ok, I'm trying to do a 2010 projection in ATX using the tax planner and it is showing no tax whatsoever for 2010, even if I use the 2009 figures, where there was $791 due. Situation is: ex-pat with wages that qualify fully for the income exclusion, rest of income is qualified dividends. Also has a kid qualifying for the CTC. So....I have some of income taxed at 0% due to the cap gains rate (wages are low enough that a lot of the dividends are taxed at zero), wages at zero, but the amount of dividends that are taxed are at the rate as though the wages were taxed. (Insert "I hate the tax code, even if it is my livilihood" here-try explaining this crap to a Brit). So if nothing changes but $50 more of a standard deduction, why is the planner showing no tax? The question is how much can he draw in dividends to pay no US tax. But the answer should be less than last year, not more.... A. Per the Tax Guide I got today, the rates haven't changed B. The zero rate is still in effect C. Nothing else has changed. So my conclusion is: the software is on drugs. If anyone would like to try this at home, the figures are: Wages & foreign exclusion: $23486 Dividends so far are: $30521 One child under 17 Filing HOH. Standard deduction. I think I'll try to run this on Drake tomorrow, but I thought I'd try y'all first.

I got my efin as soon as I set up shop. I can't remember if I had to get fingerprinted; I had to to get a license to sell cars back in the 90's, and to get my CPA license.

Answer the letter.

Nope!