Lion EA

I think you should've led with that !! Dan really sums it up.

The IRS instructions tell us to round like we learned in school, up from .50 AND down. However, the IRS truncates numbers at the decimal point, essentially rounding DOWN ONLY. They make the rules, but they do NOT follow them!

SEP can be contributed up to biz return deadline, including extensions. It's an employER contribution. The ability to make contributions through 9-15/10-15 is one of its benefits. Solo 401K employEE contributions must be made by 12-15. Is there employER matching allowed that can be contributed through the return deadline? No matter, if your client and his retirement provide have a year-end deadline, then you're working with that info.

I have a couple TN returns with the same questions re the November 3rd deadline. IR-2025-47

Our clients can spend their money foolishly. But their record-keeping better be accurate and organized, so I can make sense of what's deductible.

A client walks through the livingroom to get to the OIH, but we can't use the sq' of the LR as part of OIH. Regular and exclusive. My clients can use my hall bath, but it's not part of my OIH, so I wouldn't allocate the bathroom part of my water to my OIH. I keep changing sides on this. Probably 'cause I'm too sleepy to read the code.

And if he parks it at the house (commuting) or uses it to haul his daughter's furniture to her new apartment or stops at the grocery store on the way home or...he still better have a log to document biz/farm vs personal/commuting use.

Tex explains it well. Any required fees/books/equipment?

Is Westrock the current/successor company? Their investor relations department might have historical data, including a program or spreadsheet that works back through mergers/acquisitions/splits/etc. Remember all the Baby Bells before covered trades?! They had (have?) an online app that let you start from when you sold taking you back to the date you said you bought/inherited and took you through the mergers and splits. You could also start from when you bought/inherited, so it took you through from that direction. I had to use that a few times with clients.

Was it only the pipes that were replaced? And only up to code, nothing fancy? No pump or mechanical equipment or holding tanks or anything inside the house? Not all or substantially all of the plumbing? Then, I'm on the side of Repair. You can elect to Capitalize, if they expect their income to be higher in the future...

Catherine is my idol and my hero!

The upgrade in pipes pushes me toward Capitalize, but isn't there a Safe Harbor based on some % (2%?) of unadjusted basis of house? The $20,000 might fit under that Safe Harbor to give you a firm authority for Repair. The IRS FAQs aren't bad and contain examples: https://www.irs.gov/businesses/small-businesses-self-employed/tangible-property-final-regulations#Aregulatoryframework

One silver lining of PITA clients leaving is that we can spend more time with our lovely clients!

Raise your fees! Or else I'll send all my clients who complain about my prices to you. And, I bet they still complain about your prices! If you're getting no price complaints, you're too low for your area. If you get a few, you're still too low. If you lose a client over price, you're close to a good fee structure. If you raise your fees 30% and lose less than 30% of your clients, you're in good shape. Then raise them a smaller amount again the next year!

I would start at $500 if MFJ and only 1 state, but probably start at $600 with the rental -- IF their rental records are in usable shape, so could be higher. More if I have to drag info out of them, for rental or any other issue. 2 returns if MFS, so I'd charge for 2 returns -- probably a very substantial discount on #2. But each return would stand on its own, so if only 1 had a rental, only that would would start at $600. For new clients, I don't start less than $500. If an old client who's been paying $300 suddenly showed up with a rental, she'd probably be only $400 IF very good records. New vent: Old client I've been trying to proofread yesterday and today, with lots of interruptions from hubby and other clients, has now contacted me NINE times since she UPS'd me her folder the end of February. I told her before she sent her info that most of my clients had already dropped off by mid-February, so her return would be prepped in April. NINE times! She just emailed to say, "Getting close to tax deadline..."

An Unhappy Hour with a beverage of choice in hand. Find Brenda C, CPA @bsuecannon on Tax Twitter/X. She has a scheduling scheme to spread out her work AND have the clients buy in so few "just checking when my return will be ready" calls. I just didn't have the time to put it in place this year, but definitely will before next season. She recorded her Zoom training sessions. Brilliant woman who put her years of experience to work for her and is sharing her methods. I've been raising prices 10% each year since back in Covid when I read that the average CPA price increase was 35% that year. (Used to raise no more than 5%.) Although, a couple of the biggest complainers had me back off if I put them on extension to stop the complaining. I found a fairly local preparer to recommend when clients complain; he has 5 offices and can take on new clients. I haven't seen a check yet, but I'm to get paid. I've been encouraging attrition with my price increases and insistence on extensions to spread my work out all year. Every return is more complex. Energy credits taking a LOT of research. Sell home and move to a new state, so have to allocate wages, etc., to PY returns. College kids working in 2-3 states and maybe an IC gig. I started getting behind when Covid began, and it just gets worse. I'm also going to have 3 tiers of pricing. 1. Current price but fewer services, mainly only electronic copy and PAY for quick questions. (I've trained most client to use email for nonPII and quick questions, so I can answer when I have time and have a record to save in their electronic file on my computer.) 2. Price increase, at least 10%, for same services as now, but a limit on quick questions before charging. 3. Substantial price increase, adding more minutes of quick questions. Trying to guide clients to the middle price that puts a limit on free quick questions. Maybe Bronze, Silver, & Gold. Or, Compliance, Collaboration, & Concierge. Or, 1,2, & 3. Or, A, B, & C, if I could come up with titles starting with those letters, such as C = Concierge, but should B = Basic and what would A = ? A chocolate treat to the one who contributes names for the 3 tiers!! Marchternity @MarchternityBot Today is March 1865, 2020. It will never end. #taxtwitter

In general (that means I don't know either MD or WV) reciprocal agreements cover wages, maybe all earned income. I don't think a real estate sale/capital gains would fit under a reciprocal agreement. Does MD give a credit for taxes paid to WV on the MD resident return? WV real estate sale would trigger a WV nonresident return.

Form 1120 (2024) Page 5 Schedule K Other Information (continued from page 4) 13 Are the corporation’s total receipts (page 1, line 1a, plus lines 4 through 10) for the tax year and its total assets at the end of the tax year less than $250,000? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Yes No If “Yes,” the corporation is not required to complete Schedules L, M-1, and M-2. Instead, enter the total amount of cash distributions and the book value of property distributions (other than cash) made during this tax year $____________________

Use the IP PIN received in January 2025 for all e-filing during calendar year 2025, no matter the tax year. The IP PIN belongs to the current calendar year.

Yes, I think of the IP PIN as belonging to the calendar year. Use it for anything you e-file (current and 2 prior tax years) during this calendar year. You enter the IP PIN on a tax return for whatever tax year, but it belongs to the calendar year in which you're actually e-filing. So, it will NOT be from a prior tax year, because you're e-filing a prior tax year return in this calendar year. We spend our work days in tax year 2024, or earlier: what were the tax laws that year, how much was that credit, etc. We don't spend a lot of our work days in 2025: ES, planning... So, an IP PIN has very untax-like rules to belong to 2025 e-filing but for 2024, 2023, and 2022 returns.

My inkjet all-in-one (that's old and not printing right now) was for anything that wasn't a tax return: copies, quick scan to paper or .pdf to give to client, color printing, faxing a piece of paper when I didn't have it as .pdf, etc., and it talked back and forth with my computer. At the time I bought it (2nd printer I owned), I had a color laser printer (1st printer I bought decades ago). The color laser didn't die; a non-HP cyan toner exploded inside it. At that time, it was so old that I wasn't going to spend time trying to clean it or pay money to clean it, if it was even possible (it was a LOT of toner). By that time I also had a fast black-only printer for tax returns. Margaret makes me think that my next all-in-one should be a laser, so it truly will do everything but tax returns, but could be a backup for tax returns. Two printers are enough, if both of them are laser. Thank you, Margaret, for telling me about your backup laser printer!

My Brother is HL-L2370DW. I love all the same things about it as Margaret. The only downside is that the bypass door is too shallow to hold a page of labels securely enough to feed straight; but I can put a sheet of labels in the paper drawer for better results. The bypass is fine for feeding an envelope, though. Or, card stock.

The "switch" has been my experience, but I might have only 3 printers of all kinds at any time. In the 90s, I quickly moved from Bother to HP and stuck with HP for decades as they lasted and lasted. Now my workhorse is the Brother that prints returns, thanx to my IT guy's recommendation. My IT guy's experience, servicing hundreds of clients a year, has him recommending Brother printers now. I'll be adding 1-2 more Brothers this year. One of my clients worked for HP for years (no longer) and told me HP bought technology from Canon, so he uses Canon in his home office.

So the spouse without APTC has lower income? Maybe your client does qualify for more? Surprised, but I don't have a lot of clients using the marketplace so haven't run into this scenario. Keep us posted on how this works out.

I've had a lot of old HP workhorses since I went into biz. I had one after another Brother fax machines that broke down fast when I started, so switched to all HP for anything that prints. My current IT guy told me that he still recommends the high-end HP models, but for small offices like mine he prefers Brother in my price range. I now have a Brother, small/fast/B&W, for printing tax returns. Probably going with a Brother all-in-one after tax season to replace my old HP all-in-one that served me well for years/decades but that's giving me fits re not using HP cartridges when HP no longer makes cartridges for this very old printer.