User talk:Anchorman
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| Revision as of 15:23, 10 August 2009 JR1 (Talk | contribs) (Your big money client) ← Previous diff |
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| + | == Sorry anchorman...just recently saw your question == | ||
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| + | Yes, Section 125 plans are simple to set up....did you get any input or advice? | ||
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| + | My apologies.....did not see the post until I signed in today after several months away | ||
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| + | Sandy | ||
Revision as of 16:39, 10 August 2009
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!!
Wow, I'm 53! 1976, Holy Cross Hog until they tore it down and stuck a flag pole there! And just got back from Annapolis, went across to St. Michael's, fell totally in love with the Chesapeake and crabcakes. I could actually live there, tho' I know it's freakin' hot in the summer. What a gorgeous area...office on the sailboat for sure.JR1 Jeff
Anchor
What part of Virginia to do you in? I live in Arlington and have my practice there too. YOU???
LLC
Hey Jim. *sigh* thinking about the Chesapeake....Maria's in Annapolis...St. Michael's...
Oh, yes, taxes. All I meant was that an LLC isn't the wrong entity for RE, like a corp is. So it's ok to have both the biz and the RE in the same LLC from that angle. I'd just split 'em at some point because often, a business is sold apart from the RE. And if they can make it happen, they sell the biz in whole rather than the assets, preserving cap gain treatment on it. Busting it up in order to keep the RE kicks up more tax usually. So no big hurry, but that would be my tack! Yes, intentional sailing term thanks to your location. Unless you're in the mountains or around Washington... Jeff JR1
Penalty abatement
Hey!!
When I request a penalty abatement I do so in a letter referencing the items that are subject to the abatement.
9 times out of 10 if you have a valid reason (and these are loosely determined...the LLC handled things in house and now they hired an accountant that can advise them or a change in accountants, etc. etc.) they will abate small penalties like that. "abatement" is the key word....use that term and most often it is allowed :)
Pics are from Maine. I traveled there in 2006 in the summer and then again in the fall. Was there for 6 weeks working and enjoyed my Sunday's as this was a day off!!
Welcome here...your name reminds me of Matt Lauer or Brian Williams...some anchor man on news :)
SandySea
You said that you can find phone numbers of new businesses online for free.
Can you send me an email and tell me how to do that?
Mike@SBSCPAGROUP.com
Fort Wayne CPA
Frank Salman
I'd be happy to answer questions about Franks program. My email is barry@greatbendcpa.com.
Barry
Hi Anchorman
I'm new to this site & didn't realize I had a message. Still figuring this board out! I'm in the Wilmington area, not sure how far that is from you. Your daughter will love it here, especially if she likes the beach. Let me know if you need any info about anything here. seaside cpaSeaside CPA 18:22, 6 August 2008 (CDT)
Hi Anchorman, I still don't know how to do messages very well, but I think I had one from you regarding insurance agents. I can give you a couple of names of agents I know personally that I would trust. Robert McIver with George Chadwick Insurance (located on Wrightsville Avenue) and David Ager with LagomarAger Corporation (Allstate Agency located on Carolina Beach Road.) Hope this helps!
Fee study
Worthless debt
I doubt that there is a hard and fast way to prove such, especially if I read correctly that your client is an attorney, but normally I'd like to see an attorney's thoughts about why it is worthless, or perhaps the odds of success, and it be arms length in nature. "ABC Company has a long line of judgments against it and since your's is not secured you would simply be last in line. In my opinion, any suit to force judgment on the part of anyone will lead to bankruptcy.' Those type of words, not simply, 'in my opinion the debt is worthless.'
Death&Taxes 12:09, 25 February 2009 (CST)
1098-T
Yes, I'd use the amount in Box 2. I don't know why, but it's always listed in Box 2 on the 1098-T forms that I've seen. I've also seen proof in many cases that the same amount in Box 2 was actually paid during the year for tuition. Be sure you include all educational expenses, including tuition, fees, books, supplies, equipment, and room and board (less the amount of tuition used for the tuition credit or deduction) when filling out the Education Expenses Worksheet.
Deb 08:52, 25 March 2009 (CDT)
Good Luck to you too
Thanks for the personal response.
That's too bad about your client. I cringe now everytime I ask my clients how their year has been.
I had clicked on your profile after I answered the posts - you have a very lovely family.
Stephanie
Good....
I wasn't sure as I was responding to you if my message was making sense. Glad to help.
I was in the Army for a while and stationed in VA too. I actually changed my residency from TX to VA for a while, then was sent to another post outside of the state. I found out then that VA does not require state income tax from active duty members outside of the state.
Anyhow, I appreciate it and will chat again sometime. Oh yeah, auditing is not too fun. Pete
Geez...your 1065 K1's
I feel like I have to pass on reviewing all that...it's late in the game, probably around 3 dozen for me to go yet along with all the usual quarterly payroll crap on top of that...
I do use my software well. I wonder if Drake has a 1040 worksheet or K1 import? In ProSeries, after doing a 1065 or 1120S, I open the 1040 and import the K1's...easy as pie 99% of the time. Only issues are the stupid production deduction and if they're not at risk, so you have to check that box and open a 6198 sometimes.
So explore all that first before you willing pay someone real money to do it for you...! But you can always risk just sending me the pdf's of the 1065 and 1040 and I'm happy to take a free peek for the obvious.... Jeff JR1 Hit me at email and I'll come back and delete that whenever I can remember to!
My process
as of 4/14 I had completed 437 returns since Jan 1. Most were appointments of return clients. About 80 were new clients. About 80 were mail in's or drop offs. I do have a process.
1) We pre-schedule apointments same date/time as prior year appointment. Except no pre-scheduled appointments in April - we move them all up to 3/30 or 3/31 then work backwards. And people who traditionally owe or have late K-1s don't get another Feb appointment - those appointments are reserved for people expecting refunds who have everything by the end of Feb.
2) Half hour appointments. Very little chit chat, other than walking them from the reception room to my office. Once I sit down the interview begins. Well, that's the idea, but there are exceptions.
3) I work off an interview sheet. I only make a note of the things not on another document. Why write down their SSNs if you have last year's return?
4) I had an input /starter this year. A young lady who had done data entry/quickbooks/excel type stuff in the past. No accounting degree, but relevant work experience. I paid her $13 an hour for 4 hours/day from the last week of Jan until we were caught up the end of the first week of April. Honestly I didn't have 4 hours of work for her after April 9th, so that was her last day. In late January while she was learning how to input (Drake has some practice returns I had her do), I also had her pull everyone's How Much Stimulus page and print it out and put it in their file. This saved lots of time later, as I didn't need to ask people how much they got, and for new people, we just looked it up too.
If someone took a standard deduction, she also went online to look up their county property taxes.
5) I have a financial planning/investment assistant who works for me year round. She does the 'pick up's, and I only talk with people who have additional questions, or people who dropped off and I want to see them for financial planning reasons.
For year's I've had someone do the pick-ups, it saves SO MUCH TIME, all you have to do is teach someone how to read the tax return (This was your salary, this was your interest, this was your dividends, etc) line by line. It would help if that person has done some basic data input so they know what wages and interest earned are. My assistant took an Intro To Tax Prep class online through NATP this past Fall.
6) Clients pay at the pick up. We take credit cards for those who 'forgot' to bring their checkbook. We do mail out returns to people out of town prior to payment, but they've got to pay before we e-file their returns. Yes, I've been stiffed one one or two returns a year for the past 21 years, but that is a cost of trusting people too much. I don't get stiffed on the ones who pay up front, only the ones I trusted. Go figure.
Hope this helps. Kevinh5
pick up
By pick up, I mean the appointment for the client to go over/pick up their finished return and pay us before we e-file. This is a chance to ask additional questions.
I only print organizers for those who request them. I learned very long ago that some people are offended by them "If I could fill that out, I wouldn't need you, I could do my own return."
So we send out a letter in January telling the client when their pre-scheduled appointment is and telling them that if that date is not convenient, they may call the office to re-schedule. Also, if they'd like a personalized organizer with last year's data in it, let the receptionist know and she will print and mail one out.
About 15 or so years ago, I sent everyone an organizer and most clients brought them back unopened "it said Important Tax Info so I knew you would need this." duh. Kevinh5
Would you be willing...
Would you be willing to either discuss with me via email or let me call and talk to you about how you started your business? I am a CPA with a full-time job and I'm trying to start a home-based business so I would love to have the opportunity to talk to someone that has been successful at this.
Thanks. copelandh@sbcglobal.net
Pay yourself rent?
There's a case that I'll find when I can remember its name, something short and Anglo like "Clark" or "Short" or some such, but for now, here's a link to anauthoritative commentary on where the deduction for paying oneself and/or one's spouse for a home office is at [Look at how far I will go to show that a preposition is, indeed, something I can end a sentence with.]: http://www.cbscpa.com/new/cbscpa/content.asp?contentid=402359660 Harry Boscoe 09:21, 22 April 2009 (CDT)
Pay yourself rent, use the Cox case...
this might or might not be the case I was thinking about; it is certainly the case described in the article sent earlier. it's the good news/bad news about renting from yourself case. it can be found on findlaw.com. maybe some place else, too, will comment on it, I didn't look.
United States Court of Appeals for the eighth circuit
No. 96-2896
D. Sherman and Maxine M. Cox, Appellants,
When I said "short, Anglo" I really really didn't remember that the name of the case was "Cox"...
Harry Boscoe 13:30, 22 April 2009 (CDT)
Craigslist ad
Hi Anchorman
Thanks for replying to the topic, it is a great discussion. Would you mind forwarding that Craigslist ad you referred to? I am based in NYC so I don't think we are in competition.
Thanks so much Dave Aca2ea 09:32, 24 April 2009 (CDT)
Craigslist ctd..
my email is boltontax@live.com
Will definitely keep it to myself. Thanks again and if I can help you with anything please let me know.
Dave Aca2ea 15:23, 24 April 2009 (CDT)
Craigslist
Anchorman,
Thank you for the kind offer. My email is: brockandassociates@gmail.com.
By the way, that's a beautiful set of Anchorettes you have there. You must be proud of them!
Michael
Shelby courthouse
My assistant grew up in Shelby and she recognized the courthouse when I just showed her the picture. I'm glad you got something out of the material. I don't share it with everybody, but you have always been very nice in your posts and questions. Kevinh5
check your email
I sent you another gift. Kevinh5
105 vs 125
Hi, I'm away from my office this week, so I'm writing from memory, not from reference. The 125 is generally used when you want to pay for med insurance premiums with pre-tax monies. The 105 is for when you want to pay any health care cost (insurance premium or out of pocket cost) with non-taxed dollars. The 125 is generally a salary deduction, whereas the 105 is pure employer money. You might want to post a general question or add to an existing question if you want to know more. Kevinh5
Duplicate questions
Hi, Anchorman - I've noticed you've started posting questions twice - once on an existing discussion, and then again an hour or so later as a new discussion.
As you saw last time (here and here), this can get confusing when you end up with responses in both places. Also, the people responding in one discussion may not have the benefit of having seen the responses in the other discussion, and so we all lose the value of the "power of the group" - when answers start to build on each other. To avoid that same thing happening this time, I've actually deleted the first question you asked today, which you put at the end of this discussion, so that all responses will end up in your new discussion.
In the future, I'd ask that you only pose the question in one place. (Or, at the very least, go back and edit your original question if you decide you shouldn't have asked it there, and edit it similar to the way I edited the one today, with a link to your new question.)
Thanks,
Trillium 13:40, 5 June 2009 (CDT)
Recognition, double posts, etc.
Hi, Anchorman!
The silver, gold, etc. recognition boxes were something that Tim Doyle (the moderator from Intuit) used to do when the site was first starting out. He had a program that counted up number of posts per user, and from what I gather, he was trying to recognize those who spent a lot of time here, as part of his goal of creating a viable community. Until quite recently, I don't believe any of these had been "awarded" for quite some time, but really any user could add one to someone else's page subjectively. I see that Kevin's done that for a few of the long-time regulars since the start of the year.
If I'm correct that the original gold, silver, and bronze recognitions were earned by post quantity and not quality, then their value might be a little questionable. Some of the least reliable posters have high post count, whereas some very very reliable users didn't start posting until after the recognition boxes were awarded. While later stars might be more likely to have been earned by subjective appreciation from another user, even then there's inconsistency. I find that a review of a user's past contributions is much more valuable when I'm assessing the reliability of one of their posts. To see that, click on "edits" next to their name in a discussion, or go to their user page and then click "user contributions" in the toolbox section of the left hand side of the screen.
You might want to get in touch with Tim and see what his current criteria are, or contact Kevin, since he does seem willing to "award" recognition.
Tim Doyle is an Intuit employee, and is the moderator of the site. Kevin and I help him out, at his request, moving discussions to the consumer forum, deleting duplicate questions, cleaning up spam, etc. This was an experiment that started late last year, at the same time the Consumer Forum was created. But we're not Intuit employees.
As to the double posts - I think that once you've done a search, if the best / closest discussion to your topic is either long or more than a year old, then the best thing to do is to start a new discussion right from the start, and link back to the older one at some point in your question. That allows people to click back to the old discussion if they want to see what you're relying on/see what research you've done, without clouding up the discussion with old/off-topic stuff. And fewer people will get distracted before they get to your question!
Hope that all helps - if I missed something that you asked about, let me know.
Trillium 12:13, 8 June 2009 (CDT)
263A
See Regs. Sec. 1.263A-3. Rules relating to property acquired for resale
I am asking "Does not the $10M reseller exception only apply to the taxpayer if the taxpayer has "DE MINIMIS PRODUCTION ACTIVITIES"?
RoyDaleOne 11:29, 29 July 2009 (CDT)
From IRS Web Site
http://www.irs.gov/businesses/small/industries/article/0,,id=97675,00.html
Exceptions to the Uniform Capitalization Rules
The uniform capitalization rules do not apply to:
Resellers of personal property with average annual gross receipts of $10 million or less for the 3 prior tax years Property used for personal or non-business purposes or for purposes not connected with a trade or business or an activity conducted for profit Research and experimental expenditures deductible under Section 174 Intangible drilling and development costs of oil and gas or geothermal wells or any amortization deduction allowable under Section 59(e) for intangible drilling, development, or mining exploration expenditures Property produced under a long-term contract, except for certain home construction contracts described in Section 460(e)(1) Timber and certain ornamental trees raised, harvested, or grown, and the underlying land Qualified creative expenses incurred as a free-lance (self-employed) writer, photographer, or artist that are otherwise deductible on your tax return Costs allocable to natural gas acquired for resale, to the extent these costs would otherwise be allocable to "cushion gas" stored underground Property produced if substantial construction occurred before March 1, 1986 Property provided to customers in connection with providing services. It must be de minimus, and not be inventory in the hands of the service provider Loan originations The costs of certain producers who use a simplified production method and whose total indirect costs are $200,000 or less
RoyDaleOne 13:10, 29 July 2009 (CDT)
Better Explanation
Small-manufacturer exception. In response to comments concerning the administrative burden of complying with the UNICAP rules, the Regulations except qualifying "small" manufacturers. Under Reg. 1.263A-2(b)(3)(iv) , a manufacturer that uses the simplified production method and, during its tax year, incurs total indirect costs of $200,000 or less may treat its additional Section 263A costs as zero. For this purpose, any nonproduction costs not required to be capitalized under Reg. 1.263A-1(e)(3)(iii) (e.g., selling and distribution costs) may be excluded from the computation of the $200,000 threshold. Taxpayers that use a method other than the simplified production method (e.g., facts and circumstances) may have to file a Form 3115 (Application for Change in Accounting Method) or otherwise change their election in order to qualify for this exception.
Small-reseller exception. Under Section 263A(b)(2)(B) , the UNICAP rules do not apply to personal property acquired for resale by a taxpayer with average annual gross receipts of $10 million or less for the three preceding tax years. The Temporary Regulations had left unresolved whether some minimal manufacturing activity would prevent a taxpayer from qualifying for this exception. The final Regulations provide that a small reseller may disregard de minimis production activities. Whether production activities are de minimis is based on all the facts and circumstances. In addition, production activities are presumed de minimis if (1) gross receipts from the sale of the produced property and (2) labor costs of the production activities are less than 10% of total gross receipts and labor costs, respectively, for the entire trade or business. Moreover, small resellers are exempted from the general UNICAP rule that property produced under contract for a taxpayer is treated as produced by the taxpayer. Accordingly, third-party contract production does not prevent an otherwise qualified taxpayer from using the small-reseller exception.
Your big money client
Jim, you wondered about this: "How about inc'ing the biz, reducing her SE income to the reasonable salary level, and then buying the loft for office use, personally, taking rent out of the corp, etc. Then, her solo 401k number just went to 25% of salary plus the deferral amount."
Yeah, what I'm describing there is pretty classic. Inc. the biz, set as an S corp, set a reasonable salary which limits the SE taxes. Buy the loft personally, rent it to the corp for as high a FMV as you can justify, which just gets money legally out of the corp, again free of SS taxes. And then do the solo 401k to the max...
Hope that is clearer.... Jeff JR1
Sorry anchorman...just recently saw your question
Yes, Section 125 plans are simple to set up....did you get any input or advice?
My apologies.....did not see the post until I signed in today after several months away
Sandy
