joanmcq

Hi AppleFlag & welcome to the board. I do a ton of these returns in my practice. Oddly enough, you can pick and choose which years to amend based on whether it's advantageous to your clients or not. Don't forget to look at spousal health care benefits that may have been taxed in the past. One thing though; if you amend for any benefit of marriage (like removing imputed income from health insurance) you have to amend to married for all. In other words, you can't pick & choose within a year, amending to remove the health insurance income but not to MFJ or MFS. What I do is enter the more complicated return, whoever will end up as 'taxpayer' on the joint return, hit 'amend' and then just add the spouse's income & deductions. You only need to file one amended return. I don't attach any of the originally filed copies, but do attach the forms & schedules that changed.

Well I'm here in what on the weathermap is apparently the only warm place in the country. Yay for CA, BUT.....we're dry as a bone. No rain, no snow, no precip at all. The reservoirs are going dry. And this is supposed to be the rainy season...

I hope you have a signed disclosure from you client allowing for you to send to a third party. I give copies to my clients, sent through a secure portal. What they do with them is the clients business.

Unless you are living on savings, it's hard to justify more mortgage interest than income. That would be a huge red flag for me. I did have one client in a similar situation, except that the first year I did his return he had sold a vacation home for a 50k gain and gotten over $200k cash out. He had been a successful real estate agent & was burned out and took a few years off to take care of a dying ex. He had no income for two years at all except the piddling interest on the cash. But I knew he had savings., asked a lot of questions.

I have very few EIC clients. Single mothers I do interview closely to verify the child lived with them. One that comes to mind has only W-2 income. Very little due diligence required except to verify the child's address is the mothers.

If you check the box for a Sch C, you have to say what documentation you used to prepare the return. For example I have a client with a Sch c biz that gets EIC. I checked that I used taxpayer prepared P&L statements, and also 1099s received from her customers (she only sells wholesale). I have also observed her making the items she sells, and seen her wares in catalogs from the fore mentioned vendors. I note this in the 'other' section. On an EIC audit, if the preparer doesn't have the docs she or he said was used to prepare the return...penalty.

It depends on the seminar, but yes, for the 'powerpoint' ones, might as well it be a webinar. I've attended great classes though; usually the smaller, more specific ones. Next week I'll be doing my first Gear Up conference, and I hope its worth the time & travel.

I've used the heavy duty staples. sometimes you need the 'big stapler'; I have returns that will run 50 pages. Mine is huge, but I've started just getting a pdf of mine. and yeah, the big staples are a b*tch to remove!

I'd correct in the current year with disclosure.

Thanks, I tried to catch up on there last night and the little circle just spun and spun....

I use the Tenenz folders; not as nice as the MinesPress ones, but I've had quite a few compliments on my presentation. I usually put docs in a two pocket folder unless they don't have many, in which case I staple them in the back of the return.

I'm off on Saturday to Orlando for Gear Up's Magic Week seminar. 40 hours including full day updates plus a full day of ACA. In CA CPAs need a minimum of 20 hours in a calendar year, and 80 hours in a 2 year cycle. I'm above my 20 hours already, before going to Magic Week, plus got bonus hours for teaching. But I'm with Jack (for once!). I take classes for the information I need to stay current and informed, and learn things that might benefit my clients. And get way over my requirement. That said, I've taken some of the CPA Academy courses, and they're not bad although the presenters may be trying to sell you a solution. Not a bad way to learn about new technology though.

The self-employed attorneys I've had as clients were the worst recordkeepers I've ever seen. I advised one (that I had done an OIC for) to just get a job for at least 5 years so she would stay in compliance. Either the attorney has to be successful enough to have office staff, or they should accept a paycheck!

Like a lot of things, it'll take some time to train our clients. But I'm sure when W-2s were introduced there was a learning curve. And 1098s. Even last year, the 1098s that went out without the mortgage insurance figures? We dealt with it. I do train my clients, and train them well. If they aren't trainable, they pay for the time.

I use Square and have a Paypal button on my website. A lot of my remote clients use the Paypal (which is cheaper than the Square 'type in' charge) and it's great when people either 'forgot the checkbook' or just don't have a bunch of cash in their account to swipe the card. Psychologically it seems easier for a lot of people to charge a large amount than to write a check. A lot of younger people these days don't even have checks; they've been brought up on debit cards. Of course, yesterday a couple just handed me $300 in cash which is fine too! I'm just making sure my fees reflect the increased use in cards. And yes, like last year there will be a fee increase. I also am not doing as many freebies. A note goes into the file if I've spent a lot of time on phone calls during the year, and the return price will have that added.

Have you ever phoned an attorney? Every phone call I made to my divorce attorney cost about $50. They had joint & several liability on the loan due to co-signing. She's legally responsible, even if she didn't get the car in the divorce. Suing ex is likely her only recourse.

If you miss open enrollment, you have to wait until the next open enrollment, just like with your employer insurance. So if you decide you'll risk it in march and have that heart attack in April, you're SOL until the next open enrollment for January of the next year.

Someone that age's insurance will cost less than the $2000/ yr. so it would be stupid not to get covered and risk an accident, or sudden illness that could wipe them out.

I hit the Macy's sale online and picked up some nice sweaters & tunics for my 'professional wear' for the upcoming season. Had coupons on top of sale prices. I don't fight the stores at all. I might have to go into Kohl's to look at purses, though. Their site isn't as good and I'm very particular on handbags. Self-employment helps when you can hit the mall (I hate malls) at 11am on a Tuesday.

Thank you for this article. It summarizes nicely what to advise clients for end of year planning.

Ok, I wash & reuse baggies, don't use fabric softener at all, and reuse paper if it doesn't have client data on it, but darning socks? Nope, worn out socks become dust rags.

I have my XP computer with the old programs on it, just in case I need them...which I will soon, since it have to file 6 years for a nonfiler. It also had better photo editing software than either of my newer biz machines which came in handy when I had to create an ad for a function I was sponsoring. It runs slow as molasses for the most part, but I can't toss it (or remove the hard drive and hit it with a hammer as I do with defunct biz machines)

Isn't the Daily Currant an Onion type parody site?

You don't like her for what seems to be some pretty petty reasons and let her know this. She said some things back which you found insulting, including the way she worded her apology. IMHO, you're nitpicking. Now you want to hang out because you're bored. Seems to me she's better off without your 'friendship'.

The same here; kept waiting for them to give him the real thing. That is the sort of joke I've played with my siblings as adults - having my brother open a package that contained only batteries before giving him the one with the Walkman for instance (yeah I'm dating myself!). But you don't do that to a kid ferchrissakes! Back to Thanksgiving: in the '80s I worked for Tower Records which had to be the first store that was open 365 days of the year. In fact my first workday was Thanksgiving 1983. BUT the store asked for volunteers for the three major holidays (T-day, Christmas & New years), paid double time, gave the option of working a half day, and Thanksgiving & Christmas catered a meal with all the trimmings for us. That first day of work I was literally starving, and was truly thankful for having a full turkey dinner! thanksgiving was an extremely slow day, and was mostly staffed with employees like me that had no family in NYC, so the store was 'family'. The same with Christmas (I took every other Christmas off travel home to be with my family), although Christmas was horribly busy with every non-Christian in NYC shopping IMHO! The store never wanted for staff volunteering to work. This is such a difference from the Wal-Mart experience. Tower paid full health & dental insurance too. First job I had with benefits.