Sec 481(a), scrubbing fixed assets, be careful with the balance sheet

[jklcpa]

How are others here handling the scrubbing of the fixed asset schedule?  Are you simply deleting the assets?  I did that on one corporation and it was a company that was required to fill in the Sch L balance sheet, so the program reduced the fixed assets and accumulated depreciation by the amount of the deletions.  If you intend to use the EOY figures from last year's return as the BOY this year, you'd need to reduce the retained earnings for the amount of the 481(a) adjustment to keep in balance.  If you are going to pretend the assets were never capitalized or depreciated, you'll have to change your beginning retained earnings amount by the amount of the adjustment.

 

The first corp I filed had a beginning balance sheet that did not balance because I deleted the assets from the fixed asset schedule and didn't notice that it was out of balance.  I had all the documentation attached, so it will be easy to explain if the client gets a notice.