David1980

Well just write "unit 1" and "unit 2" and pretend they're apartments! (You know there's gotta be some preparer somewhere doing that fraud...)

It's good that they're finally allowing the $8000 to be efiled. Seems strange the IRS took so long to change one number in their system. Did they have to pay a monkey to count to 8000 or something? Anyway, good to see it's coming soon. As far as amending returns that had previously claimed $7500 that's no surprise. What I was telling people is they could take the $7500 and amend later or wait for IRS to update it's computers and take the $8000.

Yes, the primary "is it allowed or not" indicator from a taxpayer's perspective is "did I get a refund or not". Short-term views, and it makes it hard to get a certain kind of clients if you have a tax preparer who is preparing incorrect returns because they either don't know any better or don't care. My first year there was a local "fire fighter specialist" who would give the per diem for those people, needless to say I didn't see very many fire fighters that year.

I'll preparer the Schedule D with $0 basis and short-term "various" for date acquired. It usually convinces the taxpayer to find the info... or to bitch at their broker so that the broker caves in and gives them the info.

Taxpayer used to have property. Taxpayer no longer has property. So you have a gain/loss on disposition of property. Depending what kind of property it is, the loss might not be deductible and the gain might be excludable with section 121. Though with those numbers there is no cancellation of debt income. So you only have to worry about the gain/loss on disposition of an asset.

The date of death for the deceased spouse should already be on record at the IRS anyway. I would do 2008 as if 2007 was filed correctly.

Paper file. It would get rejected electronically. IRS will send letters requesting more information. Hopefully your client is either the custodial parent or has the signed document from the wife necessary to claim the kid.

Rhode Island will also tax the income earned when the taxpayer was a resident of Rhode Island. There is a credit for taxes paid to other states. If you're doing a part-year RI return, the credit is on RI-1040NR Schedule V part 2 lines 18-27.

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f1045.pdf Wait just a little for the IRS to have the form. Wait a little longer for TaxWise to add the form.

But that was under the old dependency tests. Current support test does not require the parent to provide over half the support for a qualifying child. The residency test could be an issue, depending on the details.

Sorry for the misunderstanding, that does make sense.

You know, it's rules like that which are why I switch between Geico and Progressive every 6 months + few days. They give me a "new customer" discount. Where as if I stay with them, I pay more. I guess it works since big companies do it.

OK, I was totally wrong on that one. Colorado does take the 1099G electronically now. So it should only give you issue if there is state withholding.

There is no 1099-G sent with the federal return. http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=204167,00.html You'll note it has W-2's, W-2G's, 1099-R's, etc. Not 1099-G, as a 1099-G doesn't get filed with the return. So it is very stupid. There is at least one state that requires 1099-G information, but it's only transmitted in the state efile image. Pretty certain it's not Colorado. If I had to guess, they may have required the 1099-G for all returns because it's required on the 2% of returns that include that state. Dumb. If it's just for a state refund, can you just override the amount in and not have a 1099-G at all?

The 1045 can't be efiled at all. http://www.irs.gov/efile/article/0,,id=204167,00.html

I disagree. On the 1099-C the amount in box 2 should be the difference between the total loan & FMV. So they had a loan outstanding for $11,810.34 + $13,500 = $25,310.34. See detailed example 2 in Pub 4681. In that example they buy a principal residence for $335,000 with $15,000 down payment. They pay down $5,000 of principal. So when they owe $315,000 it is foreclosed and the FMV is $290,000. Only the amount above the FMV is included in box 2, so the 1099-C shows $25,000 of cancelled debt and $290,000 FMV. The $25,000 is not the balance of loan outstanding, but rather the cancelled debt.

Does that create a loss? I ask just because claiming losses on timeshare is an issue with IRS, there's quite a few court cases on that issue.

The "joint" schedule C option was widely abused in non-community property states. Rumor is that the tax software companies were all asked to remove it. They did release "qualified joint venture" last year where you break everything up 50/50 and file two Schedule C's. This saves you from doing a 1065, but isn't as convenient as the joint checkbox. (hopefully someone next year realizes it would be awesome to add a checkbox to automatically generate the two Schedule C's.)

The making work pay credit will be a $400 credit on the 2009 tax return. The withholding adjustment is supposed to provide the benefit now so that we aren't waiting a year for any stimulus. So for example if someone would have had a $9,000 liability on their 2009 tax return before the credit and would have had $10,000 withheld they would have received a $1000 refund. With the change, they should have $400 less withheld and will have $400 less tax liability on their 2009 return. So they would owe $8600 and have $9600 withheld and receive a $1000 refund. That is of course assuming the numbers all end up being exact. In practice there will be some difference just because of variations in weekly pay, etc. The bigger problems will arise when people work more than one job or file MFJ. It's entirely possible someone working multiple jobs will have the $400 reduction multiplied by the number of jobs they work resulting in much less withheld than they are going to make up with the $400 credit.

No, the tax shouldn't change at all.

I'm glad they're doing it. I hate knowing people are preparing fraudulant returns or preparing one return to send to the IRS and another showing much more income to get a loan. In the end it just results in higher interest rates for those not willing to cheat and bailouts for the cheaters... I had one person last year who wanted a second copy of the return prepared specifically for that purpose so that they could give it to the bank. I wouldn't do it (duh).

And probably an SS-8 but I'd let the taxpayer fill that out.

As long as the amount is $7500 or less it should efile fine. Otherwise you are waiting on the IRS to update their computers to handle the $8000. You wouldn't think it would be that complex, it's just changing a number...

If the employee agrees to work 42 and actually works 50 that's possibly a contract issue. Gives valid reason for termination of employment of employee. I would guess if tax people are worried about this, it probably happened already and employer is trying to get out of paying? Good luck! (If it's only one week it probably is not worth hiring an attorney. If it's a long-standing problem I would question why nothing was done about it eariler.)

But if they add a second floor they effectively double the square footage.