Lion EA

I did ask for the trust document up front, months ago. She has tried and continues, but with skeleton staff and not returning phone calls (like many businesses) it will be a long time coming. It took many months for KPMG LLP in AZ to copy hubby on trust tax returns. In the meantime, the preparer who brought me these clients has long ago filed personal returns for H&W plus mother. I filed the S-Corp returns. But, continue to email back and forth re the trust.

You might be thinking of your client receiving a check that could have w/h, and as Randall said, it's on client to make up the difference or pay tax on the w/h. But, he gets the w/h on his tax return. Just tell your client to do a trustee-to-trustee transfer to avoid any w/h.

I'm working on one now that the wife of a trustee (the only trustee?) moved from a bank that was handling the investments and return -- investments to H/W broker and return to me. Trustee is an artist but wife is a writer and deals with their finances and paperwork; CT residents. Beneficiary is H's 90-something mother out in MI, but the prior fiduciary company is in AZ. Wife thinks trust was started by husband of Beneficiary, who would be her father-in-law, but he died long before wife married husband (second marriage). I have three years of returns and NO state return. Wife is a pretty good researcher, but has found no state returns and no trust document. Her best guess is this is a MI trust. This all came to me through the preparer for their personal returns, so that preparer now has mom's personal return -- and again NO state. (Preparer does not prepare trusts or any returns other than personal.) Mom's personal return would obviously be MI (although, not obvious, because she has a second home in another state). But, the story there from the other preparer is her personal filing requirement is higher than her personal income in whatever states she's looking at. In addition, the prior preparer of the trust checked Simple Return but used Exemption for a Complex Trust. Probably some other fun things; I just opened it up today. I'll get through the federal the best I can and then figure out next steps.

I think it's the wages you report on Form 941 but NOT including wages you use for another benefit, such as PPP forgiveness. I don't think it kicks in until you're filing 2Q Forms 941, so we have lots of time to continue getting clarifications that are arriving almost daily. I'm sure you know as much as anyone else; but if you're unsure, you could find a good payroll company to work with your payroll clients. (I got rid of all my payroll clients to places like Paychex, so I don't have to learn the finer detail of this one!)

A 4868 filed by 15 July gives you three more months to 15 October.

ILLMAS: I can say those words here. I would NOT be able to say them to a client. If I think of a polite-sounding way to say, "I told you so," I would. But, luckily my S-corp employee/shareholders DO take salaries, quite a lot of salary, in fact. So, their grumbles were about not being able to use the amounts over $100,000 in the calculations. And, they are all smart enough to realize that's a good problem to have, so tiny grumbles!

The 1120S owner should've listened to us when we told him to put himself on payroll.

Sounds like the magic "portal" is finally arriving next week. Or, can you e-file S and have direct debit for only $10 or so now? She has until 15 July to pay, so no reason to pay all of it now. Then you give her the paper amendment to mail as soon as her original is processed.

Sorry, Judy, I'm too tired to interpret anything right now. I'm glad the SBA and others continue to update the regulations, but it's frustrating for us answering questions and for the small businesses trying to apply or having already applied and then reading an update the next day. Congress tried to be all things to all people/voters and designed too many programs for us to digest, too many to issue rules for quickly. And, pages on sites for the SBA, IRS, Senate, Treasury, Chamber of Commerce, and many more, mean you have to search around to find the information you need and then compare dates to make sure it's the most recent. I agree with those who would love to know more about Forgiveness before receiving a loan, so we can plan out our spending the most beneficial way. I have a webinar Friday afternoon that's covering everything through Friday morning.

Let's file correctly, but it may have to be on paper and mailed in.

Some SBA loans prohibit other SBA loans. PPP is available if you have no other SBA loans (over some timeframe, such as last 7 months or something), but if your only other SBA loan is the EIDL, then you can roll your EIDL into the PPP.

If she gets a payroll loan, she is expected to spend at least 75% of it on payroll if she wants it forgiven. The interest rate is only 1% if she's not interested in forgiveness. And, there are many other SBA loans, both the new ones and the ones that have been around before COVID-19.

Some college websites have the housing costs plus the % of housing costs to use for off-campus students.

PPP can be for non-employees starting tomorrow the 10th. Plus, there are a LOT of other SBA loans.

Anytime I do something for the first time, I bill hourly. If it's a learning curve that benefits me (I'll do more of that thing and make money doing it) then I discount heavily. PS We can't discuss fees specifically, price-fixing and all that. But, I don't have a fee for Forms 5500 anyway. Maybe those who prepare 5500s can mention the range of hours it takes them.

You can roll your EIDL into a PPP. Don't know the math of that, but there are experts out there who can explain how it works.

I'm still reading and reading and taking webinars and more webinars, but my take is that forgiveness will be based on the payroll costs, including things like health insurance PLUS rent and utilities and those non-payroll things as long as they are no more than 25% (of the total expenses, payroll + non?). Any excess over that amount that is not forgiven has an interest rate of (is it?) 1%. So, at that low rate, using the rest of the loan to keep everyone at work until income resumes is probably a good deal. Or, for employee morale, paying employees/bringing them back sooner, because now you have the funds to make payroll while income is low or nonexistant. CPAacademy has a FREE webinar at 4 pm EDT today Tax Practice Pro Inc. has a FREE webinar Friday at 2 pm EDT AICPA has a $29 webinar Friday and also Tuesday 14 April at 3 pm EDT specifically on the PPP and FORGIVENESS NATP has a FREE on-demand webinar VASEA has two FREE on-demand webinars The most I paid for anything is $29 A free webinar I was in last week had 5,000 attendees! None of us know this yet, but I'm trying to learn from wiser people who are studying and sharing.

I don't know the act, and have been trying to deal with it as little as possible, only as it can help my clients or answer their questions. But, none of us are experts yet. We do have to read the parts we need for a specific client question. And, then yes, ask others what that means to them, until we get more analyses written in tax preparer terms instead of legal terms. I've been taking webinar after webinar on the parts my clients have asked about. And, not getting nearly enough returns prepared nearly fast enough. So, I'm getting cranky and probably should apologize for that short answer. However, we do have FAQs now as well as the act, so reading first would help you. And, Dan told us that section is only two pages long, so I think those two pages of the act and the FAQs or another analysis would bring you some understanding. "What is this..." is a pretty broad question.

I keep wondering if Circ 230 ways anything about telling our clients, "I told you so!"?

I finally looked at the list of resources on the web page for the Episcopal Church of CT: https://www.episcopalct.org/covid-19-coronavirus-updates/covid-19-financial-resources/ Without clicking on the above link, you can use your own browser to search for Episcopal Church in Connecticut. The COVID-19 link will schroll across the page.

It's something along the lines of not the same employees used for the PPP/forgiveness. Do read the act and then the recent FAQs.

Thanx, Edsel. I have a couple TN clients, so I showed off my local knowledge, thanks to you.

Thanks, Dan. Treasurer is looking into EIDL as well, so I'm passing this on to him.

A QCD could before and can be now used over and above an RMD (when required) up to $100,000 (is that the amount?). So, if you want to give to charities in this time of need and you expect to take the standard deduction, you will not get any benefit except for the new $300 adjustment to income. If you use your retirement plan to give directly to charities, your retirement withdrawal is NOT income up to your donations. I will probably use that, as our other accounts are low, and the needs are high for food banks, etc. I stopped my RMDs for this year, but will probably take a QCD soon to give to some local organizations and our church for this year, sooner rather than our more usual December.

Yep, telling clients the same, no guarantees. This is all new with rules being written on the fly. We don't know. Here's what we know, and you decide.