JohnH

Personally, I wouldn't buddge on refusing to handle his work after he goes to Costa Rica. Trying to bone up on somehting like this for a single client is a losing propostion. I'd tell him he has to find someone else and he can expect to pay them a lot of money to prepare his returns. If he can't afford it, then he can't afford to go to Costa Rica.

My response:

Since you forced hinm to find someone else and pay more, I think you should reimburse him the difference. Good client relations and all that stuff, you know. After all, whatever happens to him has to somebody else's fault - may as wel be you.

And as long as Terry doesn't prepare the mother's return, the issue is much less problematical for Terry and for the client. Terry has been told that mom has already filed, Terry knows what the student-/client's wishes are, and there is no way Terry can or should become involved in Mom's tax situation.

Judy: That's a great explanation. Mind if I print it off and give to a couple of clients who just can't seem to understand me?

This is another of those situations where it pays to migrate clients over to e-mail & text communication. Email them the link to "Where's My Refund?" and then let them check it to their heart's content. If they call (or hopefully email or text you) to ask about it, just say you don't have any more info than they are getting from the web site.

It doesn't help when people are being bombarded by TV commercials showing tax preparers shoving pallets of money out the back of airplanes & floating down into their living rooms. It feeds their perception of the "handout" mentality surrounding the free money concept of tax refunds.

I'm dealing with a similar situation. My client has 3 dependents plus him and his wife living in the home, with a family income of about $50K. His 21-year-old daughter (4th dependent) is a full-time college student who works, having a w-2 showing about $20K , with most of her tuition paid by grants & scholarships. She lives in an aparment near her campus. I don't see how he can claim her as a dependent, but still thinking about it. Maybe this thread will help both of us figure it out.

We woke up to 22 degrees this morning. Some people are complaining, but not me. Compared to what you folks are enduring, this is a heat wave.

I forgot to mention - planning to file my first extension tomorrow.

Reminds me of when I was in the Air Force. Stayed constantly depressed because every time we had mail call I had a couple of "Dear John" letters.

Rita: Whenever she calls, just tell her you pulled her return out of the stack to give her an answer, but you don't remember where it was so now you have to put it back on the bottom of the stack. After the third or fourth call, maybe she will get the message.

Naveen you are in my prayers at this difficult time. May God give you comfort - He will see you through this.

I don't sign returns when I don't charge, because I like to follow the instructions. Page 75 of the 1040 instrructions couldn't be more clear. " Generally, anyone you pay to prepare your return must sign it and include their Preparer Tax Identification Number (PTIN) in the space provided. The preparer must give you a copy of the return for your records. Someone who prepares your return but does not charge you should not sign your return."

I didn't address the issue of using standard deduction on Federal and itemizing on NC because I can't think of a situation in which that would happen. The NC standard deduction is much higher than Federal across-the-board. It seems to me that the charitable contributions credit (and maybe a few other adjustments) are the only issues at stake. For the most part, NC has "simplified" by raising rhe standard deduction, lowering the marginal rates, and eliminating many adjustments to income and credits. They pitched this as being of little consequence to most taxpayers, but I'm still not convinced that is the reality.

The contributions credit for non-itemizers has been eliminated. Here is a good summary of all the changes form the NCDOR web site: http://www.dor.state.nc.us/taxes/individual/ind_whatsnew.html

Wonder what the IRS reaction would be if he take the advice to go to someone else who knows less, they do it wrong, he gets tagged by the IRS, and he shows them the printout of the email you sent him which essentially recommended that course of action.

I'll bet #14 will sail through without any questions. That's a catch-all big enough to drive a truck through.

Buying tax advice is like buying oats. For a reasonable price I can provide good quality oats. On the other hand, if price is your only concern, then you are free to go somewhere else, pay less, and risk getting oats that have already been through the horse. Your call.

Good game so far, but that halftime show was a snoozer. Guess I'm just not young enough to get it.

It's lots of fun. But you also need to have a ready answer for that rare client who will ask what happpens if you accidentally shred somehting important. The answer is: "We can always get a duplicate. Most of the time it only takes 5-6 weeks." Be sure that you're shredding something while you say this. It's even more effective if the shredder is so noisy you have to raise your voice to be heard over the whining and grinding sounds.

The three most ignored phrases in the English language: 1. "The check is in the mail' 2. "Honey I'll love you as much tomorrow as I do tonight." 3. "We're from the government and we're here to help you."

I love opening envelopes for a couple of reasons: 1) It elminates the possibilty of the client throwing away something important; 2) If the client is sitting there while I open the envelopes, it creates some entertaining moments. As I pull out the boilerppate stuff, I immediately shove it into the shredder while I'm conversing with the client. It's just too much fun watching the expression on their face as they secretly wonder if maybe I just shredded something important while that machine is loudly grinding away.

But for that group of employees who have qualifying healthcare coverage at work, and for those retirees who have medicare coverage & no dependents, it's still just a "check-the-box" answer and move on. So my question remains unanswered - Where'e the problem with respect to these two very sizable groups of people?

So I'm still puzzled. I completed a return for 1) a retired person on Medicare with taxable retirement earnings, and 2) a single wage earning in their 50's who is covered the entire year by a plan provided by their employer. In both cases, I just checked that they had full-year coverage and a check box appeared on line 61 of the Form 1040. Both returns done and out the door. Furthermore, I don't see how any of this changes in 2015 in any meaningful way. Yes, the person working for the large company could lose their job or the company might drop coverage. Aside from that possibility, there isn't anything new or different in 2015 for them. The retiree isn't going to be dropped from Medicare in 2015. So where is all the complexity and difficulty we spoke of earlier? There's absolutely nothing of any difficulty for that subset of taxpayers. Or was this just more hyperbole and hysteria over ACA?