Lion EA

Are you sure that's all her medical expenses? My elderly clients with round-the-clock care plus co-pays and deductibles and insurance premiums and ... spend about $175,000 per year. Also, has she been paying tax each year on her savings bonds, or did she pay when they matured, so that none or only some of the $86,000 is taxable for 2016?

This is from my sleep-deprived brain, but I think the holding period includes his prior ownership also, so long-term if the two periods add to more than a year. Try your tax research, such as IntelliConnect.

In CT, the LLC fee to SOS was only about $20 (maybe only $10 when I went into business) and that's it, so really a little extra protection for no big deal for a SMLLC that's just the same old Schedule C for tax purposes. Then CT added a $250 business entity tax. That makes all the difference in the world to a small business. Buy more insurance coverage, as others have said. To CT's credit, they now make the fee every other year instead of annually, but still....

Took field trips there. It always smelled great !! (I lived on Bellwood Avenue, one house away from the train tracks.) And, Mr. Normal: "It wasn't that long ago when we went to 10 digit dialing for local numbers. I called it 17 digit dialing because I often called the 7 digit number, got the error message then dialed the 10 digit number." It wasn't long ago that CT had to add an area code, so I know the feeling. My phone number growing up was Linden 4-3541.

I agree about good insurance. An LLC does NOT replace your need for insurance -- in any state.

The LLC is a state entity, so do start by exploring your state website. That said, some limited liability is afforded to LLCs in every state if the entity acts like an entity, not co-mingling monies, for instance. If you have a friendly, local lawyer, do pick his/her brain also. In CT, a tax liaison said at a meeting of tax professionals that if LLCs had been in existence before S-Corporations, that there would not have been a need for S-Corporations. Don't know if a lawyer would go that far.

That's right, I was born in Berwyn, IL. My family moved to Bellwood, IL, when I was about two. Bellwood was home to Eugene Cernan the astronaut and the Sanford Ink Company, maker of Magic Markers. My sister still lives there. I spent about a decade in Santa Barbara, CA, and have lived in tiny Weston, CT, since 1978.

I lived in suburban Chicago, not the boonies. (Boonies now.) So, I guess that makes me older than you.

Including the refundable portion, right?

You need to write Tax Tips in an e-Newsletter to your clients. Especially about bacon!

I deposit via my iPhone. Take credit cards via QB. And, remember when picking up the dial phone (the only one in our house on the centrally located phone table that held the phone book and a chair, because you couldn't move away more than the generous six-foot cord) meant having to listen to see if someone else was already on our party line. Or, when a double-click was how you accessed the operator from my grandmother's phone to have her connect you to the person you wanted to call.

I love the ones that include a magazine article, just in case I didn't know what People magazine said about savvy tax deductions, for instance!

CT: use the same property tax sites for real estate and motor vehicle taxes on the pinned info.

If it was really a favor between close relatives, then your client can ask for the 1099 to be corrected to zero if money was really just a gift for being a help when needed. Your client can offer her help again to file the forms. Then it won't appear on your client's return. And, if under $14,000 (over $14,000 would seem to be a LOT of help) no gift tax return for the s-i-l.

I know lots of people who took any work they could find, especially with flexibility, while they were job-hunting/between jobs. They did it for income or networking or to keep their hand in or not to appear unemployed while they looked for something more permanent/ more "career" than just a job. But, they were jobs. Employee. Or, Schedules C and SE. Probably the latter since all have moved on, leaving your client with a 1099-MISC box 7. Her employer got work done that she would have had to do herself or hire someone else to do. Employer controlled where, what, who (your client couldn't send someone else unannounced, right?), tools, and even mutually agreeable times (I don't let my very, very, part-time assistant come at 3 a.m. or when I'm not in my home office, for instance). By the way, my own VPT assistant is down to about once/quarter as the elderly clients she helped for me have moved into facilities or passed away, so now it's just some filing, shredding, organizing for my business and sporatically for my clients. I still pay her on a W-2.

Are you talking a couple of days, one project, catch up on filing and outta here? Or, an entire tax season. Continuing to file and copy the new paperwork and not just sort the old stack? Only you know if this was a "hobby" or regular and continuous.

Have her check her bank statements to see if she received direct deposits. Years ago before DD was required, I had a friend who didn't get checks in a couple months. She contacted SSA, and they issued new checks. Turns out her hubby thought the original checks were his, so he deposited them. When the SSA realized the checks had cleared in hubby's account, they wanted the money back, obviously. Struck a deal to withhold it gradually from benefits, so all ended well.

Done

And, for searching for CT entities: http://www.concord-sots.ct.gov/CONCORD/online?sn=PublicInquiry&eid=9740

The best I've found to search by municipality in CT: http://publicrecords.netronline.com/state/CT/

I have almost no one on Obamacare. But, I thought that they have no recourse to collect the penalty -- sorry, TAX -- except by it lowering a refund. That if someone owes and doesn't send in the penalty, there's no recourse. So, the IRS was not failing to process returns just because Obamacare information was incomplete or a lower amount is set to be direct debited or for anything Obamacare. This year, the IRS was going to start NOT processing returns that were incomplete re Obamacare. But, after the executive order, decided to continue with their method of prior years. I would continue doing whatever I did in prior years re telling clients their options. And, add the new wrinkle of extending to wait to see if the law changes.

Catherine, I have a client (retired PE teacher, or whatever the PC term is for that subject now) who keeps a coach's whistle by her phone for that very reason.

Do NOT call. If he reaches you, tell him you have no openings for new clients this season.

My seniors are more complex, in spite of paying off their mortgages so taking standard deduction. They have many, many, many sources of income: SS, IRAs, pensions/401(k)s, SEPs/SIMPLESs, capital gains, interest, dividends, and lots more interest, and maybe a part-time job or SE &/or renting out a spare room or renting their house until it sells while they move in to a smaller place (did they get 1099-S?), and LTC benefits when ill and double-checking RMDs and which were ROTHs and which were inherited and....

I get bored doing easy returns. And, I don't want the dumbest 30% of the population unless they are really, really nice to work with. My clientele needs my advice for next year and not just forms filled out for last year. I've been assuming I could shrink my business in my old age via attrition, but my numbers are up a bit each year from referrals from my current clients. I will have a career for as long as I want to work!