Catherine

Snitched from another group: Remember in January when we thought this was going to be a crazy tax year because they made more changes to Form 1040 and W4? If we only knew.......

The continent is not as wide as you think, Tom! LOL; that was a good one. I appreciate the laugh. And I just can't help it if the rest of you are all over-sized!

For anyone else still wondering - it's the D2 screen. Sorry I didn't see this before; I've been really lax in checking in here.

Not crazy at all. I think about it as well. Frankly, I use encryption because the state will come after ME if client data is breached. If I have done everything on their little checklist, I am off the hook as far as state prosecution goes. Since I am not fond of either orange or jumpsuits, that is important. For the actual consequences of data breach, I have cyber insurance. There's only so much we CAN do. Belt, suspenders, duct tape, and staples. So, secure networks, no broadcast of wifi (ours requires the MAC address of a device to be entered in before it will admit its existence, then asks for password), encrypted drives, encrypted back up both local and cloud. Deleting any email that contained sensitive information (after printing to pdf), plus telling client first to delete it themselves and next never to do that again. After that, there's nothing in my control.

What to do next depends on how much the gain is with $0 basis, and how much effort the client is willing to put in to track it down, and how the stock was acquired. I had one client who had inherited stock from a grandparent who died in the early 70's. We had solid starting basis from that, and with the help of a broker traced the original stock through splits and spin-offs. It took hours - and the client gladly paid me for those hours tracing and calculating. Another client had no recollection, the total amount of sale was small, and he decided not to bother. As others have said, it is the client's responsibility to give you the information. If you're going to get dragged in to calculations, it still has to be based on information the client finds somewhere, you need to be paid separately from tax preparation, and it's not going to be cheap.

Just put in the number and ignore the formatting.

MA has a funny system; they tell you (if you call) that they have NO access to prior-year withheld tax figures. However, if you file a prior-year return and make an educated guess as to tax withheld, somehow they can ALWAYS tell you how close you were to the actual. So what we've always done is make our best guess at state tax withheld (for W2s, anyway) and file 'em. But yes, it would be lovely if the IRS could get that info. After all, for some people the state income tax is still a useful deduction on Schedule A - it's an important figure, even for the IRS.

Daily using Acronis, per schedule with increment, differential, and total, to local external storage drive. (PITA to install, seamless to run.) Daily using iDrive, online incremental. (Seamless to install, annoying to log into to adjust.) Both tested and files can be (and have been) successfully retrieved.

You could as accurately have ended that comment after the word "people," my friend!

I love my backlit Kindle Paperwhite, especially at night or when travelling. But I also love the feel of a real book in my hands. The people who come to our house for the first time are astounded at all the books in every room (except bathrooms and furnace room - humid and bad for them). And yes, well over 90% have been read and re-read and will be re-read yet again. I'd read in my sleep if I could figure out how to keep my eyes open.

That was just about my first paid work. My dad would bring the big books and the new pages home from his office, and pay me to swap out the outdated pages for the new ones. I think I was about 9 or 10.

My family used to make the rounds of all the relatives in winter/spring. Saturday with X, Sunday with Y, kids would play, moms would yak - and my dad and the other dad would get the taxes done. Dad would bring along the 30-pound solid iron adding machine - probably a Burroughs Portable, with the side-handle. I remember the adding machines where multiplication was sequential adding, and having to keep careful count! Also remember doing returns by hand when I first started out. I have always taught assistants on paper; as far as I'm concerned, they are not qualified to touch the software until they understand how the information flows from schedule to form.

I have a 1942 federal form, filled in - with Liberty Bond receipts attached! It was in my mother in law's files; my husband saved it for me. Gotta have it framed.

I'm mainly looking for items such as who the trustees are, who the beneficiaries are (see if those match what I've been given), and what *must* be paid out - or is it up to the trustee (simple vs complex). Not the gobbledygook. In this case it turns out a trust return needs to be done. But I've seen trusts that are beneficiaries of other trusts so they get a K-1, BUT it's a grantor trust and the check gets deposited to the grantor's personal account. For those trusts, a demographics-only return with an attachment saying "all income reported on Form 1040 of Joe Smith 123-45-6789" does it.

Almost but not positively. I've seen these were all was reported on the individual, and the "trust return" was either nonexistent or had demographic info only and a disclosure that all income was claimed on return of John Q Smith ssn 123-45-6789. Start with trust document and prior year returns. Talk with lawyer who set it up, if needed.

First pro software I used on my own was TaxAct - dumped it after a couple of years because at the time it had almost no part year or non resident state forms. Switched to ATX, left in the midst of the 2012 filing season debacle for Drake and have been with them ever since. Used a couple of forms from Zillion Forms to get the PY/NR forms I couldn't get from TA at the time, too. As a consumer a bazillion years ago I used MacInTax, then Ttx (briefly; never liked it), after they started pushing e-filing and I left paper behind. For friends and colleagues, I have helped using ProSeries, ProSystem FX, and others that I frankly don't recall. Do remember I hated ProSeries with a passion (it was the most convoluted and non-intuitive program I've ever used, including writing my own programs in Fortran with punch cards), and thought that ProSystem would be a lovely option if it wasn't obscenely expensive. LOL; I don't really remember it too well (it was a LONG time ago), but I do recall there were a couple of really complex individual returns with lots of states, and a gnarly S-corp that I finally beat into submission. Maybe they were all related.

what is this word, and what does it mean? we are all tax accountants - doesn't that say it all?

I remember Zillion Forms! Hadn't thought about that in years and years.

Let's take time on Monday to remember those who have died in defense of this country.

Yes. US citizens owe tax and a tax return on WORLDWIDE income. You can exclude income from taxation (but not reporting on a return), or take a credit for tax paid to another jurisdiction, or even sometimes as a deduction on Sch A. Which works best depends on what they qualify for, how much money is involved, and other factors - but no double dipping! The webinar Margaret mentioned may be a big help. You can also read the instructions for Form 2555 (foreign earned income exclusion), and/or Form 1116 (foreign tax credit) to see if those help you.

The ONE client we've had that did this, called to warn us ahead of time. We had her send the paperwork at the time, put it in her file - along with an explanatory letter while the details were fresh in all our minds, and had it there waiting WHEN the letter came. Ba-dum-cha off went the letter and documentation copies, problem solved in five minutes. Because we pre-planned for it.

They hide until you cry "Uncle!" and ask for help. Ask me how I know this...

Yes, I also have it set up for recurring donation. Makes it super easy, and the system (Eric, again; he is SO good at this) sends a reminder a week or two beforehand, so if you need to change, cancel, adjust, or whatever, you have time to get it set!

I accept e-signatures from POAs, as long as I have a copy of the the durable power of attorney for my files.

fouled, right?