Lion EA

I've stayed virtual, so if they drop off or mail/ship unopened envelopes, at least I can use my letter opener and rip them all open and toss envelopes in my recycle bin and flatten out their documents in a mad flurry, all unobserved. Thank goodness, I do have lots who use my portal. I guess that's one of my criteria for firing/selling clients. I remember a strange old lady at HRB years ago that reported me to our manager and everyone in ear-shot in the office and probably to regional/national supervisors/whatever saying I shredded her tax papers! I opened each envelope and put envelopes in my wastebasket under my desk. All documents remained in her sight ON my desk. Our office shredder was in another room, so if I were going to shred anything, I'd save it in a pile until that client was done.

Especially since their pile stapled together with the W2 note also contains a 1099-INT and 1098 and maybe their car tax receipt.

I haven't had this situation, but it seems like 2 separate transactions: purchase of marketplace insurance, and then income from the union. Or, reimbursement from the union. Form 8962 would be filled out per its directions. Would the income go on one of the Other Income lines? Or, would it reduce any Schedule A medical deduction? Did the union pay the insurance company directly or send a check(s) to your client?

Can we use the buzzer for lots of things, such as clients emailing us more than once to ask when their returns will be ready?

One safe harbor that's not too time-consuming is to have them pay in enough with their extensions to bring their payments up to 100%/110% of what they owed the prior year.

How many seminar days and how many personal days did he spend in Africa? Also, make sure you're looking up International travel rules, because they differ from US travel rules a bit. Just haven't had anyone recently.

Margaret, you get some real doozies!

NYC taxes only NYC residents. NYS taxes NYS residents and non-residents; NYS taxes non-residents only on NYS-sourced income. FDNY sums up your situation well. (I don't like NY nor CA returns, and have been reducing those clients when I can, such as the client being a PITA and not just their NRPY returns being a PITA. Or the clients fleeing NY and CA. Finally got rid of my OH clients.)

What Catherine said. Plus I can make more money, and save my health & sanity, by working 11 months instead of 3 months. I actively encourage extensions. My 1st year on my own, I even gave a small discount for those, a bit like an overbooked flight. It helped me that year and going forward as I then had a core of clients who realize an extension is NOT a bad thing. Unfortunately, my biggest client is an S-corp who adamantly, passionately refuses extensions, plus I have to have their Forms K-1 in the hands of their personal preparer by that firm's deadline, due to no personal extensions, either. This year they're broadcasting out of the country until 20 March, so I'll have a bit more trouble getting their signatures when they have time to check the portal and when they get to a location where they have strong wifi. Plus CT redid their S-corp/partnership form and broke out a separate PTET form to learn. Not crazy about their bookkeeper, either; I just found mid-six figures under Taxes on the P&L instead of the BS Shareholder Distributions! (They take plenty of salary, so that's not the problem, just that their profit is a LOT higher than they are expecting.) I'm trying hard to get through this set of returns before Monday. The worst thing about a 15 March deadline, and others such as brokerages having a February deadline and also extensions to that, is that I just barely get into 1040s when I have to shift gears to biz entities, and then spend a month trying to pick up speed again on 1040s. It breaks my stride. Anyone get well into a return where you thought you had everything, only to discover that their Int/Div/CG seems way to little; they forgot to tell you they changed brokers during the year, and the 2nd set of statements isn't out yet? I hate to restart later but still need to review my earlier work and... OK, I know I'm procrastinating.

And, here's an on-demand webinar: https://my-cpe.com/courses/1040-nr-or-1040-us-income-tax-returns-for-noncitizens-1623855867?opentab=ondemand#subscribe_form Jean also teaches via CCH CPELink, but I didn't see anything on-demand as I skimmed over the topics...

An email from Jean Mammen: "...it's the 7th. The tax code hasn't changed anything except the dollar amounts of things like the standard deduction - which the software knows. Those numbers the user can write over, if they want to see the exact number in the text." (She's looking for a new editor to replace the one who retired, so it'll be some time before an 8th edition is published.)

I don't have any foreign clients, but I do know someone who literally wrote the book: 1040NR? or 1040? U.S. Income Tax Returns for... by Jean Mammen, EA It's available on Amazon and all your favorite places, so you could have it tomorrow! I think the 7th Edition is the latest version, so make sure you get at least the 7th Edition. Also, if your issue is NOT how to prepare the return but more how to prepare the return in ATX for e-filing, you may need to call tech support. Hopefully, someone with international clients will pop on here today to help you.

Maybe ProtectionPlus will pay off this year!

Form 3115

If the person was responsible for the deduction and actually paid an amount, then that's the person who deducts that amount, only the amount he/she paid. Unless you're dealing with residents of a community property state (only a very few of my clients are) where you're including Form 8958, you won't have a lot of halfsies. If so, follow the instructions for 8958. Maybe with a joint checking account, both names on deeds, and both spouses agreeing...

Thank you, Eric, for your creativity, and thank you, Catherine, for reminding me of my favorite and most-descriptive-of-me-during-never-ending-tax-season emoji! And, it did pop up as Recently Used.

I go by gross income, assuming the broken IRS doesn't have the basis or lost it or didn't add it to client's account yet or... It's faster to e-file a return now than to craft an answer to an IRS letter a couple years from now. Filing can also prevent (or uncover more quickly) ID theft.

I agree that the IRS staff answers incorrectly more often than correctly. The only thing I found on IRS.gov is from 2011: The money received is taxable and should be reported on Form 1040, line 21 as “other income.” https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-utl/VTA_2011-08_Cash_for_Keys_Program.pdf I remember some changes during Covid. I don't remember specifics or whether any changes continued after Covid. Please post when you find a current answer.

Yes, Tom, SALY

https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/f8948.pdf

If our clients would send us all the pages, we'd usually have the information we need. CT requires 50% or more of a fund to be CT-sourced before it's CT tax-free, so I scan the "funds" page if available, but I don't worry if not. (I seldom see more than a couple % attributed to CT.) I just put it in the CT-taxable column. If a client purchased bonds from municipalities and those pages are missing, I tell the client to get me that information. Most of their brokers use mostly bonds from CT municipalities, state public works, etc., so there's a lot of income that can be exempt from CT tax. I warn my clients that inherit investment accounts from mom/dad who lived in NY or FL or other states to talk about the investment choices with their own financial advisors soon, discussing things like risk-tolerance and state-sourced funds and municipal bonds.

My doctor is in a band called DNR. My hubby the retired teacher has a colleague in a band called Old School.

If son graduated May 2024, then he probably still qualifies as a dependent of his parents. Do your Due Diligence re whether he qualifies for the non-refundable AOTC only or also the refundable.

Jim, you're still a decade younger than me, so enjoy it while you can!

University of Illinois Tax School has a farmers' tax seminar each year and might sell the text separately to you. Texas might have similar learning opportunities. State Universities often have "Extensions" that provide education and services to farmers and farm tax preparers (and to anyone really, so if any landowner needs help with what's wrong with their grass/soil or what plants would grow in their area or what's going on with their well water or...).