JohnH

Seems reasonable to me, especially since I'm often one of the culprits.

I tried it, but I got a different response. I'm so preoccupied with taxes right now that the minute I did anything with my hand resembling a number, my right foot tried to start sorting the paperwork in the next client's tax folder.

Yes. it may be advisable to track spoilage for management purposes, but not for tax purposes. It might be helpful back-up in a sales tax audit if you're way off the sales tax auditor's averages o his little checklist. Back before I swore off doing accounting work for reaturants, I'd have a couple of clients who listed "spoilage" as well. I didn't do anything with the figure, but I still took the number from them because it made them feel better. Maybe that's what this person's preparer is doing as well.

There's no separate deduction for spoilage. For tax purposes it makes no difference whether the food is served to customers or thrown away. You have deducted the spoilage automatically via the COGS calculation. The money spent for food in the current year is in "Purchases" and the change in inventory (up or down) automatically carries it to COGS as needed.

You gotta love NC for variety in weather. They're predicting 3-5 inches of snow tonight (Sunday), overnight temps down to 27 tonight and 17 tomorrow night, with highs in the mid-30's. Tuesday & Wednesday clear and mild with highs in the 40's. Thursday warmer, & Friday highs up to 65. Looks like I'll get to wear my snow boots and my sandals this week. If you don't like the weather in NC, just wait a few minutes.

Looks like we're likely to get some of the white stuff here in Charlotte, NC over the weekend. Some predictions say up to 4-6 inches. That's guaranteed to shut virtually everything down for a day or two. Snow in the South can be very entertaining if you enjoy watching people do really dumb stuff behind the wheel.

If its just one or two receipts, I'll ask them for a valuation. If it's $100 or so per receipt, then I note it on the receipt and move on. If they claim it's much larger, I give the receipts back to them and ask them to fill in an amount and initial it. If they've dropped off the info or mailed it to me, I scan the receipts & email the scan back to them with the same request. Return is on hold until I get the info back from them. I also email them a simple worksheet that tells them I need the original purchase price (or an estimate), date, etc for anything over $500 in a single day.

I tried e-filing on a test basis back when it was first introduced, but I never could figure out how to use a yellow highlighter on those electrons, so I gave up on it for that reason alone. Besides, you should have seen my monitor after a half-dozen returns; between the yellow streaks and the whiteout - what a mess!

OK. Second question. Do you also mark the withholding with a yellow highlighter? :)

So what do you paper-filing neanderthals (like myself) do when there is Fed withholding showing on the SSA-1099 or on a 1099-Int, 1099-Div, etc? Do you attach a copy to the return? The 1040 instructions are unclear on this matter. They say attach W-2G or 1099-R if there's withholding, but they simply say to enter the withholding amount from SSA-1099 and other 1099's (other than 1099-R) on Line 62, without any instruction to attach copies. Not trusting that the sytem works as it should, I always photocopy the other forms and attach a copy to the return, but this probably isn't necessary. It also violates my basic rule of not giving the IRS anything they don't specifically require. I'd like to know what others in this situation do and if I'm just being my normal obsessive compulsive self in this situation without good reason.

Ray: I'm sure JB will be able to answer that question this morning. Sometimes these things take a while to work themselves through...

I paper filed one with the worksheet about three weeks ago - haven't heard anything yet. In the past I always used a home-grown Excel spreadsheet and never had a problem, so it seems logical that the ATX worksheet would be fine for paper filing.

Uh-oh! Does this mean the $500,000 check the government guy promised me won't be deposited overnight?

Jack: Exactly why I wouldn't have been interested in answering the question in the first place, and why no one should have been interested in my answer, had I tried to provide one. But of course that doesn't preclude both of us from learning from answers provided by others who understood.

Jack: Thanks for the vote of confidence, but I'll have to plead ignorance on the NNS1231LPY abbreviation.

If someone calls me to ask questions on a survey, I tell them what my hourly rate is and ask them where I should send the bill when we're finished. I usually don't get to the end of the sentence before they're on to the next call.

Well Jack, one could take the opposite view. Someone wanting other people's opinions might only be interested in the opinions of those who understand the slang or abbreviation. :)

Why complicate things? The client might be better off if you just file the corp as a regular C corp and forget the S corp option altogether. At the very least you will find it necessary to amend the personal returns for 2006 & 2007 if you should get the S corp election approved retroactively. Wouldn't it be simpler to just file the election for the 2009 year and leave 2007 & 2008 as theya re? Even if you find that the C corp had profits and if you find there were non-salary distributions or constructive dividends, the tax on the dividends would be less than the tax on the additional s-corp income on the personal returns.

JB: You could also point out the them that had they waited until 2009 to buy the same home, they may have paid $10- $20K less for the same property and obtained a more favorable interest rate. That may not seem right either, but that's just the way it is. Allowing for the giveaway attitude in Washington, there's a pretty good chance they will eventually remove the repayment provision anyhow for those affected. (Gotta '"spread it around" a little).

Terry: I'm willing to be corrected if I'm off base here, but I think that generally speaking, the less the church gets involved in the specifics of the H&U allowance the better. They should have the pastor submit an estimate and then the budgeted amount should be set well above that figure, in order to be sure any reasonable contingencies are covered. It does no harm if the pastor doesn't spend it all and has to pull some of it back into income, but if the pastor's actual allowable expenses exceed the amount set for any reason, then he/she loses the favorable tax treatment of the amount not designated as H&U allowance. Once the congregation has met their responsibility to determine the amount in advance and made the proper designation, the rest is between the pastor and the tax preparer (and of course the pastor's boss).

Mike: Possibly this has been addressed on another thread, but I don't recall. I have read in some places that the resolution designating the H&U allowance for a given year should say something to the effect that it applies to the "current year and all future years unless subsequently changed". The effect of this wording would be to provide some cover if there's a failure to handle it correctly in a subsequent year (maybe due to a change in treasurers, finance or budget committees, etc) and at least validate the original amount even if a larger amount were paid without a proper resolution. Do you have an opinion on that?

Thanks, and I have to say if I'd known I was going to live this long I would have taken better care of myself.

I haven't tried this, but it could be a work-around. You could edit each of the masters for sheets that you don't want to print and simply make each one a blank page. It would still eject a page, but it would be blank. You'd then remove the blank sheets for re-use when you're collating the return. Not very elegant, but it might work. Another solution would be to print the letter and return cover sheet directly from the tab before even making your return print selections. I only print the return cover sheet for each return, so I just click on the "Client Letters" tab, select the "Cover Sheet", and then do a quick "Print Page" while I'm in the process of preparing the return. Then I right-click the "Client Letters" tab and delete the whole mess from the return since none of it is needed any more.

Seems like he would be willing to invest some bucks in paying you to do the research to justify a lower FMV, if he's smart about it. With $15K in taxes on the line, a couple of thousand spent to document a lower value would seem to be a wise investment. On the other hand, if all he wants to do is just toss you the paperwork & say "handle it", then maybe he's stuck with the info on the 1099.

First California, now it's Kansas. http://www.kansas.com/735/story/701750.html Wonder if we're going to need a special topic dedicated strictly to states that don't expect to pay refunds on time. Sure does make for some interesting conversation with clients about the advisability of deliberately overpaying and then waiting for a refund.