Catherine

Well, this one can go nowhere until you get the docs. Including he should not pay her one red cent until the details are examined and ownership - and tax liability - shares are determined.

We also know that the IRS will look at bank-to-bank transfers (such as from operating account to payroll account) as "income" going to the second account. So they will wildly overestimate the income for anyone who transfers their own money from one account to another. Those who put money into money market accounts to earn a bit of interest until it's needed will have to "prove" to the IRS (who won't have the personnel to process the proofs submitted) that the $5,000 was not income to their checking account, but savings transferred to pay for the end of year mortgage, utilities, plus Christmas gifts. It's a nightmare waiting to happen. The only good to come from it would be if trying to process all that data melts the processors on all the IRS computers, and they go back to the Stone Age for a decade.

@Eric - whatever happened to our wonderful little emoji of banging a head against a brick wall? That would be the *perfect* response to this post!

They don't send out real cards anymore, but the do send fake cards that look real - along with an application. Plus plastic "membership" cards with donation solicitations, and more. They all look real, until you look closely.

The question is really twofold: legal, and tax. Was it part of a QDRO in the divorce agreement? Is there anything in that agreement that states "husband will sell property X and give half of proceeds to wife" and then is there anything like "after provision is made for payment of taxes"? If he is to pay all the tax, then she should get her portion after the tax amount is paid, and it would be part of the property settlement and not taxable income to her (since he took it all, and paid tax on it all). If there is no provision for him to pay the tax, then she gets her portion on a 1099 as nominee, and she reports half the sale and gets half the basis (as of date of divorce; should have been listed there with a value) and pays tax for herself on the then-taxable gain (if any) but not on the part that is basis (i.e., her property) under the divorce agreement. Hope that it at least as clear as mud.

Just venting. Got off the phone after an *hour* talking with (at?) a client. Why do people spend the first fifteen minutes of a call meandering their way from one half-formed thought to the next? And the next forty-five minutes asking the same questions a dozen times but never listening to your answer? Plus drag in all manner of unrelated, stupid, items into the middle of it all, for extra self-confusion? I had a cup of tea and a piece of chocolate, and put on some soothing classical instrumental music, so I am slowly calming down. But I really, really, really wanted to dope-slap this woman all the way down to Rita's and leave her there for hugs. I'll calm down the rest of the way before I bill for the time because right now I'm thinking that $1,000 for the torture of the past hour is too low a price.

Honey chile, some of us have been unbalanced from the start!

On dodge a colleague of mine has used locally is to issue a 1099-NEC to the S-corp owner who then puts it on a Sch C with his 1040. He mainly uses it for smaller corps that frequently don't have the cash flow to reliably have a payroll - but it might work here. As long as the owner is paying that fica tax, the service might not make too big a fuss.

I have clients who live in the Czech Republic who never have any US taxable income of any kind. The only way we get to e-file is by putting in $1 of interest income every year. Silly, but there you go. Certainly a mailed-in return would have a very small chance of arriving on time (if ever). Although the Czech postal system is far better than the Australian system!

I certainly was never taught anything about it, but first got curious about the events of that time decades ago after watching a production of "A Town Like Alice" based on Nevil Shute's novel of the same name. Being a curious lass, I went digging in encyclopedias and histories (all on paper back then). I also read the actual book by Shute, as well as a couple of his other books.

But do it in writing (even email) so if/when the bill comes and they blame you, you can prove that you warned them!

We started collecting EIP3 data when people were confused about EIP2 pmts received in Jan/Feb. Have maybe half of those already. Ugh. What a nightmare!

Good luck to you - and our thanks for beating your head against this particular wall for us.

Those are both good tactics, @FDNY and @joanmcq - and have the other great side effect of leaving the bulk of the day open. Call first thing - any day except Monday - or wait until an hour-ish before West Coast closing time (until 7pm-ish East Coast time). Especially on Friday, when you can bump that back to shortly after 5pm East Coast time! Not only have many offices closed for the day (increasingly with every minute that passes), but on Friday many go home/close up early, husbanding their strength and energy for the Bataan Death March emulator that the filing season has become.

Extending the use of your most-wonderful appellation from earlier, we are now in Q7 of 2020, almost to Q8. Can we all go hide under our desks now, and stay there till this is all over? Please?

Note, @cbslee that you are talking about *state* licensing rather than federal. Also you are comparing apples to kumquats - the staffing level differences in OR and NV/Las Vegas is far more likely to be due to the clientele and types of transactions occurring in the gambling centers (that draw many thousands of national and even international visitors, daily) versus more-normal operations.

It'll go the way of the 1099-MISC to corporations; suspended from implementation because they won't have the computer processing power, or storage space, for all the data. Imagine it - a notice every time a small company pays its credit card bill, rent, buys a computer or desk, renews its insurance, etc etc - a notice is sent to the IRS. If we thought they were slow this season with all the hand-checking, they'd simply grind to a halt just about immediately.

Oooh, @Sara EA I *like* that warning that the return won't be started until those questions are answered! May have to snag that for our letter, too.

Thank you all. That was my inclination, but I am not yet "back" from vacation to have thought it through fully, yet.

Colleague having a gnarly client discussion. Installed a solar electricity system on the home. They have "net metering" from the electric company. If, in some months, they generate more electricity than they use, they end up with a credit balance. When they use more than they generate, they use the credit balance until that is zeroed, then pay whatever is left. They can continue to accumulate credit and are allowed to use that to pay someone else's electric bill. (Must have a huge solar array and no trees to do that consistently, but we'll ignore this.) What the client wants to know is, if they use the credit from the electric company to pay part of the electric bill of a charity, is that a charitable deduction? Or not?

No one seems to have noticed that I specified taxPAYERS, not pros, being treated as suspects and not with respect. Yes, the IRS treats pros with respect - at this time. If given further, and largely unconstrained, power over our professional lives and careers, and we then take a stance disagreeing with them - how long will it last? Snowballs and hell, anyone?

True, BUT - they are completely and 100% in control of stopping the computer-generated letters threatening people! They *know* they are behind in processing what has been mailed to them. They should *not* be threatening people when there are stacks of unopened mail a mile high and phone calls of which they are answering less than 10%. If they just stopped the letters and seizures until they catch up, 90+% of this nonsense would be resolved once the dust has settled. We'd still be sane, their phone lines would free up, and people would not be panicking and blaming us.

And use foreign employer compensation if you don't need the 2555 to exclude.

I keep a spreadsheet, with pages by due dates. Any return competed (copy given, e-filed, accepted) gets color coded; other colors tell me stages of prep. Once glance at the colors give me an instant general-status report.

I agree completely with Bulldog Tom and Corduroy Frog. The IRS, given this power, will not prosecute the well-known fraudsters - because they already have that authority, they already have the necessary information, and they already know (or could easily retrieve from their own databases) who those persons/companies ARE. They have not. They will not - except for a few really egregious and public, but relatively small-potato, cases, to remind people that they can, as well as to make the publilc think they actually give a rip. This power, if given, will be used to intimidate those who disagree with IRS positions. I would expect for it first to be used against the most-successful Representation groups of those who are not nationally or regionally known. The ones who stop the service from wrongfully destroying people's financial lives over taxes assessed but not actually owed. They will leave the less-successful groups to flop and flail - and fail - at protecting taxpayers. And any tax preparer who protests an audit finding will do so at risk of their professional future. Unless you want to show me, in the text of the bill itself, where preparers are protected against claims made by any IRS employee or internal group with whom they have had recent cases heard. Disagree with me all you want. But ask yourself, first, when the last time was that you personally saw a *taxpayer* (not a tax pro) treated with respect (and not as a suspect) by the IRS, and how fast they will turn that same level of scorn and suspicion on you if they are given this power.