Catherine

I won't touch ANY representation work without a retainer (unless I'm willing to do it pro bono). They are already proven to be fiscally irresponsible, so if I respect my own time and expertise, I have to get that retainer. It's also an excellent way to weed out the ones who are not going to follow through. Once they've handed over money, they are invested in the process - which makes it worth my while to dive in to the work.

A colleague who does a lot of these talked once about his frustration seeing the same folks come back every two or three years with the same bleeping problems. Not filing, missed a payment and killed their IA, not making ES pmts, we all know the type. An older man at his firm said to him, "You just need to look at them differently. Instead of calling them "problem clients" instead see them as "walking annuities!"

I had one guy send in documentation and PAYMENT on a CP2000, well before deadline. They cashed his check and then sent a 90-day letter! So he has a tax court petition ready to mail in time for the deadline, and we're waiting to see if they deign to respond to the documentation sent by ... something like the end of June.

Yes; gets you 1/2% off.

Then your people are getting different letters from the ones mine are getting. I've gone over five-page letters with a fine-toothed comb and had my assistant look too, and there is no phone number to call. Address for correspondence. On rare occasion, a fax number. But no phone. Not in the past year or two.

Sounds like the best procedure this year is to send the first "installment" payment with the return, and have the client make monthly "installment" payments online via Direct Pay. Then get the real agreement going online once they get the assessment. A new twist on "fake it till you make it!"

and duct tape and staples. While Slippery Pencil may never have had an issue, I prefer to give whoever at the IRS sees the paperwork first absolutely no reason or excuse on God's green earth to take any action other than the one I want them to take. And I always assume that the person opening the envelope is the newest hire with a forged GED, and word everything so that s/he cannot help but understand exactly what I want done.

The half-of-SE deduction is because that part "isn't supposed to be" income but rather the employer contribution that the employer, in this case, can/need not pay. So excluding that portion from taxation of income is appropriate and proper.

The metric isn't "truthfully" but rather "proper presentation of taxable income and taxes" and it's not less-than-truthful when there is no proper provision for these infrequent cases on a one-size-fits-most form.

Three or four, assuming I have ALL the information. But there is almost always something missing! Then there is the long process of writing it up and chasing the client for all the answers NOT yet provided. Or the "wait, what about my second job?" when you think you're done and it turns out they never gave you the new W2. One year a client forgot to tell us about a new baby! Picked up the return, brought it home for signatures, called the next day "where's the baby?" when she never gave us any info at all. Between three of us, we do about 700 returns in a season (personal and corporations and entities). Except for *some* of the dependent kids with summer jobs, almost all are a long hard slog.

Sending IA requests in with tax returns goes through *eventually* but it can take several months (pre-craziness) before the first payment is taken. Might be best to set it up online. Perhaps others can chime in with how fast those kick in.

It's at the bottom of the first bag in the first trailer loaded?

Hooray!

Your kids must be extra-special. Plus they have a clue, having grown up around accounting and tax.

There is a new PPS number that goes directly to the ACS unit people. Just learned about it today. 800-829-7650.

@Lion EA mentioned my above (as did Judy) so here is what I learned: The error message is because the IRS instructions say to attach a copy of the court appointment. They do NOT specifically state that the court appointment paperwork can be attached as a pdf. Nor do they state that is not acceptable. So some software companies (Drake among them) refuse to allow e-filing with the court appointed person. What I did was to check Box C and attach the court appointment pdf. It sailed through. As Lion said, *anything* to keep it from spending a year in a trailer. This particular one was a big refund, too. And I'm explaining to all my older clients (and their POA kids, if any) why it's a good idea to always owe a little bit.

No, there's no solution, in general. They are still hand-processing millions of these returns with refunds. About the only thing you can do is ask the clients if they got ANY letters from the IRS about them. Some people won't open IRS letters, or don't understand them. I had one client where the service wanted him to call to verify identity, and he never read the letter through. Brought it to me saying "I don't know what they want" and once he called (and got through - another story) he was able to verify and they released the refund. That still took another six weeks.

Each year stands alone in terms of the choices made; you can choose what works best, overall, for your client for each tax year. The "drawback" is having to do multiple scenarios as to whether tax credits, tax deductions, or income exclusions give the best result. The taxpayer cannot double-dip; no taking deductions or credits for taxes paid on income excluded from US taxation. However, you don't have to exclude all the income, either (just not above total earned income, or above the annual maximum). So if, for example, the absolute best result was to exclude half the income, and take a tax credit (or deduction) for the other half, I believe that is allowed. A royal pain in the hindquarters to determine, though!

Mine changed! MA used to use our ssn's as our license numbers. When they stopped doing THAT, we all got new numbers. Since then, it has not changed.

details changed to protect the... whatever. lol.

And we have one whose personal email starts with "bi-markc" and I really don't need to know that about him (I had been able to guess from his affect, but I really did not need confirmation).

The trick, as Pacun alluded to, is to get the correct surname as the first one. Slavic and Hispanic naming conventions can throw you for a loop if you're not used to them. If you have John Smith-Jones he'll be in either with Smith *or* with Jones as the "official" IRS surname. Using the other will cause an error. If you have Constanza Vazquez de Blanca y Domingo then you have three choices. But only two choices if you are faced with Aleksey Ivanovitch Krasnaya or Marta Hofmann-Rahneva.

We made one of our clients call about it (we weren't going to spend the time!) and the IRS told her they'd eventually get to them all, but there were delays. Yeah, we've had the calls and emails from a bunch of people. I think from now on, I'm going to recommend using Direct Pay instead of setting up payments through the tax software. More t/p control, including lookup.

And sometimes it doesn't take much. I needed a break and went and pulled garlic mustard (invasive weed) for ten minutes. Out in the fresh air, listening to the birds, watching the puppy next door try to herd a flower pot, and getting rids of weeds before they flowered. I felt great afterwards, and was able to come back to my computer refreshed.

and ignore the fact that DLs only expire every 4-5 years, depending on the state. grrr.