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Covok posted:Let me put it another way, last time we talked, you made 60k with 10 years experience. I was making 60k with 5 years experience. We both live on Long Island. My new industry job is paying me 90k plus Christmas bonus. You could probably get over 6 figures if you changed jobs. I've decided to take on the burden of small business ownership instead, you are clearly smarter than I am.
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Aug 2, 2022 18:45
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Covok posted:It's also worth knowing that That's pretty wild if it's enforceable. What sucks is even if it's not you know your old boss is willing to dish out the attorney fees to at least bluff that it's enforceable. You'd need your own cash to deal with an attorney to respond or a good friend who would do it for free and without those you just have to accept what the boss is pushing.
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Aug 2, 2022 19:58
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The best protection is building actual relationships with your clients. You WILL lose people every year; clients get old and pass on, move away, and yeah, go to other firms. You need to make sure that your clients like you enough to not move, and more importantly like you enough to want to refer you to their friends and family. Everyone loves to say they've got a guy, you just need to be the guy.
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Aug 2, 2022 21:02
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nwin posted:Hey figured this might gain some traction here instead of the homework thread. You would show it either as net loss for the year or just in retained earnings. Idk how your class wants you to present it.
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Aug 5, 2022 18:28
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pseudanonymous posted:This is sovreign citizen stuff. Yes, this stuff cracks me up. I need to find like a deep dive documentary on this, the logical leaps involved are truly something. I've got a psycho client of my own who once spent a night angrily replying repeatedly to the NY Governor's un-monitored generic email address and then forwarded me all of his responses like I gave a poo poo. Some highlights: pre:
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Aug 5, 2022 19:02
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Hellblazer187 posted:So how many of you have had clients complaining about Biden's 90,000 armed IRS agents, Antifa Super-Soldiers who must be prepared to use deadly force against hardworking white parents in the town square? I haven't heard from anyone directly but my co-worker apparently has fielded a bunch of calls about it. Hopefully a lot of this manpower just goes towards processing and phone calls because I'm super tired of those phone calls, "I HAVEN'T GOTTEN MY REFUND AND I CAN'T TALK TO ANYONE FIX IT!!!" as if I have some magic ability to get my call answered.
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Aug 15, 2022 18:12
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One of the worst things I've had from a new client was they owned multiple apartments in a building in NYC, and for years had been depreciating them as one lump and decided when they switched to my firm that they wanted to separate the cost basis of each apartment out because they were going to start selling them off. And oh yeah, they did not actually give me a depreciation schedule and there must have been improvements at some point because the depreciation per year did not match the math for the cost basis. Don't remember how we ended up straightening everything out. Another awful thing would be a client who intended to do a 1031 exchange but didn't actually follow any of the 1031 rules when doing the sale and purchase of the properties. Also awful in a sad way is when people get duped into leasing solar instead of buying and expect to get the credit. Or when they buy an electric car and expect to get the credit but it's a model that's been phased out.
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Aug 16, 2022 02:03
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Missing Donut posted:New client, an engineer, does not provide original documents but had transcribed them into multiple sheets of an Excel workbook. The transcriptions include only the information the client thinks we need, therefore we are missing some vital information, and there appears to be some errors in the transcription. Oh my god this is the winner.
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Aug 16, 2022 05:20
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Covok posted:I got a new job as an assistant controller in a construction company, small one. I received a non-disclosure agreement that includes a non-compete. It says I can't work for a competitor for 6 months, only 3 if I'm fired. If I agree to sign, would that bar me from working in any company or would I be fine as long as they don't compete with my current employer? Does it even matter since its a construction company and I'm an accountant. I live in New York. They most likely only mean a competitor of theirs. They don’t want you going to another construction company and giving out leads on jobs they’re going to do or deals they’ve cut with vendors and poo poo that would allow other companies to undercut them.
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Aug 27, 2022 00:50
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It’s Veterans Day. My office is closed, gotta take all possible fall days off since we take none in tax season. Client is double texting me to get a financial statement out to him today or he will lose a real estate deal. New client who’s former accountant ghosted him and I’m trying to catch him up for multiple years. His staff didn’t give me some info I need until after I had told him I would be gone yesterday. I do not want to interrupt my day off for this guy. How to I tell him nicely that if he wanted this he should have included me from the start of the process instead of 7 days ago?
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Nov 11, 2022 18:05
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Covok posted:I am still adjusting to private account, going from public. Good on you refusing to work Sunday's, I think doing so really hosed my boss's health and motivation. If I didn't do the same and take one day for chores and sleep I don't think I'd be able to handle tax season. I'm also always grateful that I spent a summer working at concert venue that required 4 hours of commuting, and a bunch of physical labor on show days to make me feel like tax season hours aren't that bad. I realized reading this most recent post that most of your tax seasons have been the most hosed up tax seasons I've been through. We're both on LI and serviced the same kind of clients so we've had similar experiences. This past year was my 10th tax season and it was one of the absolute worst. Tax season hasn't really felt like it ended since 2020 and I think we both have had to handle too many clients personally because our bosses took on more than they could handle. I think because I've had easier tax seasons in the past I am more confident they will come again. Not that they are ever that easy. I also have the authority to find and hire additional bookkeepers and accountants to help carry the load so hopefully this tax season will go smoother. I mentioned that I want to buy out my office but that's not happening until after next tax season at the earliest. The banks won't give me money unless I have more liquid funds and I'm not dipping into my retirement accounts or doing a cash-out refinance on my condo when I could just sweat it out another year or two and save up. Not saying anything negative about you leaving tax, you're getting paid a lot more than I am now, and regular hours are a beautiful thing. It's just interesting to me how similar yet different our profession has treated us. I guess I'm saying that if you decided you wanted to try tax again at some point that it could be better somewhere else than at your old job, and like Missing Donut says VITA or picking up tax season work somewhere could be a nice way to find that satisfaction that your main job isn't giving you.
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Nov 15, 2022 04:17
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I like having one 3 month crunch time every year that's guaranteed to be done on a certain date. Makes me appreciate my free time the rest of the year and in normal years in the before times my office was able to do things like close at 3 every Friday in the summer. The last few years have sucked because tax season hasn't felt like it's actually ended with all of the extra bullshit of PPP's and ERTC's. Hoping next season is more normal.
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Dec 1, 2022 23:05
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My payroll guy told me that the IRS is taking 6-12 months to process ERTC's so tell your boss that and just lie that you called back every time they ask again. Also make sure to slip in a "thank god they're hiring more IRS agents, that should speed up the process", let them spin that around with their Fox news narrative that armed IRS agents are going to war against the middle class. Making assumptions about your bosses but I feel comfortable I'm right since we're both on Long Island.
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Dec 6, 2022 18:02
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Audax posted:A friend needed 35 hours of CPE as of yesterday afternoon. Real FAFO energy there. I've got 8 more to do before tomorrow night. I thought it was 4 but I'm not sure if the ethics 4 hr course I did counts for the 24 hrs of Tax I'm trying to do for the year(NYS rules). First year with CPE requirements and I should not have left it so long!
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Dec 31, 2022 02:43
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Epi Lepi posted:I've got 8 more to do before tomorrow night. 4 more left to do....
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Dec 31, 2022 07:56
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I just don't think the automated future is that close for US tax. Garbage in, garbage out and if you've seen the average small business owners records then you know its garbage in. Not to mention that, to my knowledge, the IRS's computer systems are ancient and inefficient.
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Jan 19, 2023 06:31
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Jaxyon posted:I have a friend getting paid on 1099, presumably because their boss is a lazy cheapskate, and mentioned they wanted to form a corporation(like an LLC or S) to better be able to deal with taxes There are rules that determine whether someone should be an independent contractor or employee, including whether they control their own schedule, way they approach their job, where they work etc etc. Go google that stuff. If you are an independent contractor you can form an LLC or corporation for yourself and anyone paying you for your services would pay the entity. An LLC will be taxed the same as if you had not formed an entity, it's just on a Schedule C where you report your gross income and any of your ordinary and reasonable expenses. Your net profit is subject to income taxes and self-employment taxes. If you form an S Corporation you report that same gross income and expenses on a separate tax return and then the net income is passed to your personal return where it is only subject to income taxes. If you form an S Corporation the IRS requires you to take a reasonable salary for your profession and experience. Meaning you would have to file payroll tax returns quarterly where you would be subject to employment taxes. So there are scenarios where it is both a legitimate choice and will save taxes. If your buddy is getting paid $400 a week because his boss is a jackass and he's probably going to quit in 3 months then his situation is not that scenario. Fake edit: Also in CA Corporations need to pay at least $800 a year in franchise tax
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Jan 19, 2023 23:54
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black.lion posted:Last year I got my license & got some equity in this tiny firm (the only firm I've ever known) I learned this year that people can pay Intuit $200 a month on top of their Quickbooks Online subscription to have a dedicated remote bookkeeper help them with their books. The client is allotted like an hour a month or half hour a week or something of conversation time to go over everything. So if you really don't want to work for yourself maybe you can get in on that gig.
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Jan 20, 2023 20:39
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Covok posted:As we approach February, I feel guilty. My new job isn't ramping up. It's actually slowing down. We have a self set goal go have everything done with year end by the end of month. We were supposed to be done by now but hit a hurdle. Still, February and March seem set to be quiet, god willing. Don't feel guilty about your old boss, channel that into wishing me luck so I don't die this tax season, thanks and god bless.
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Jan 25, 2023 03:48
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A thing that's great about being a tax preparer is getting to touch base with all of your various clients once a year and find out how they're doing. A thing that sucks is when you find out that a client that you really liked passed away 2 months ago at only 50 years old. Kind of fucks up the whole day.
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Feb 2, 2023 18:45
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My tax software is assuming that a few tax extenders like the Tuition and Fees and Mortgage Insurance Premium deductions are going to be passed at some point. Anyone more plugged in know whether this is a pipe dream or if we do expect those items to pass? If so, any idea how soon we can hope for it? I'm a little annoyed that these items are being reflected in calculations when we they may not be passed.
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Feb 16, 2023 22:29
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Annointed posted:My face when they tell me it's a simple return. And then it's a person's entire stock portfolio, mortgage and itemized deductions in every possible category recognized by the American Internal Revenue Service. And they forgot to give any personal information to contact them for anything missing. I really need to make sure to do better to make things easier for myself and associates. The hardest part when you're just starting out is figuring what in the paperwork clients hand in you actually need and what is garbage. Being able to identify whether any of those billion pages about their stocks etc are actually relevant is something that you will learn.
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Mar 7, 2023 22:15
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knox posted:As a real estate accountant not a tax accountant I still pay someone else to do my taxes, just got call from new tax people I'm using because my brother did. I'm getting no refund besides like $60 for 2022, and somehow I owe money for 2021. In the past guy I used got me $3k+ on a return, and before that got nice returns of thousands of dollars. I'm not making over $89k to enter a new tax bracket or anything ($85k at the moment) so I can't really think why I wouldn't get any refund at all. His bullshit explanation for 2021 was I worked two different jobs (I left a position and took the higher paying one I am still at now) and something about the withholding. This literally happens all the loving time. Both of your jobs are withholding based on what your income will be for that job. Guess what, when you add two W-2s together you probably end up in a higher effective rate than each job was withholding for. That's besides the fact that the withholding tables keep getting tweaked every year since Trumps abortion of a tax plan so that people "see more money in their paycheck" which they never notice and then cry to me when they don't get the same refunds they got pre 2018.
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Apr 29, 2023 03:06
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I know there's a couple folks here that deal with international taxation issues. I have a potential client who lives here in NYS, not sure if he's a citizen or a permanent resident, but he wants to start a corporation that will operate in El Salvador and have two shareholders who live there. I told him it's not my wheelhouse at all but if there's someone here interested in taking on a new client that's willing to navigate his needs I'd love to put you in touch. PM me if anyone is interested.
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Jun 12, 2023 18:29
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PatMarshall posted:I'm not looking for new clients, but a lot of the structuring is going to come down to whether this would be a controlled foreign corporation or not. If this guy will own 1/3 and the other 2/3 are owned by non US persons, then it may not be a CFC. My first thought is to form an eligible entity in El Salvador and make a check the box election. The business income will be taxed in El Salvador, but we do not have a tax treaty, so dividends would be ordinary income. Pretty high tax. With a CTB election, income would pass through every year, but so would tax credits. Again, assuming this isn't a CFC or PFIC. You are right that he probably needs to hire an international tax specialist for this, my usually charge for this kind of work is 15 to 25k, depending on the complexity, which I suspect is way outside what this guy is looking for. My understanding is there will be 4 shareholders, him here in NY, a person in CA and 2 people in El Salvador. And yeah, I'm pretty sure that's more than he's willing to pay.
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Jun 15, 2023 03:17
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Anyone who understands VAT able to help me figure out a clients responsibility regarding it? US company selling merch into the EU and UK. Selling through their own website, not Amazon/Etsy/etc to my knowledge, using Squarespace for the payment processing, and Printful for fulfillment and shipping. Prinful has fulfillment locations in the UK, Spain & Latvia. I'm pretty sure all of that means they do have to register and they can use the One Stop Shop system. Am I correct? If I am, how do they actually register and file returns?
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Aug 29, 2023 17:14
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Annointed posted:Oof. I ended up fumbling an invoice by working on a statement with no invoice given, then got commented on my lack of organization and implied lack of work output. Just try your best not to get overwhelmed and work on doing things right as opposed to fast. Speed comes with confidence.
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Oct 3, 2023 16:57
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Annointed posted:How Like Good Citizen said, try not to get into a spiral . It's hard but you need to try to relax. Focus on one thing at a time. That's honestly my motto, one thing at a time, I can't do everything at once and if I try mistakes happen. So every tax season as my desk descends into a pit of folders I just try to pick one thing I can finish and then go on to the next and so on and so forth.
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Oct 12, 2023 23:41
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mcmagic posted:Not sure what that would even look like haha. I'm a mid level finance guy in a huge organization and I just hate it and want to do something very different but I'm in my late 30s and don't have the financial flexibility to go back to school and not work for a few years. I literally want to do anything but accounting/finance for the rest of my life. Maybe just try doing accounting somewhere else? I would kill myself if I worked for a big firm and had to like, commute and wear a suit everyday but even though I have to deal with tax season crunch every year I like my job because I'm pretty much my own boss and I'm good at what I do.
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Nov 17, 2023 18:28
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ShaneB posted:Is this a thread where I could find someone to provide some one-time (perhaps more?) consulting on setting up my self-employment LLC correctly/to my best advantage, and how to plan for taxes, investing, etc? Have money and will pay for the time. Or I can just post for free! What state are you in?
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Dec 9, 2023 03:12
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I must be a bad millennial because I hated working from home and I would never do it again.
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Dec 20, 2023 18:53
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I'm also in Tax and spend a lot of time interfacing with clients and I'd much rather do that in my office as opposed to from home even if it's just via phonecall or zoom.
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Dec 20, 2023 19:03
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PatMarshall posted:You have to call late accounts on the phone. They will ignore emails. If its just that they don't have the invoice or forgot, then emails are fine, but if its a true late account you have to call them. Collections sucks, I have to do it to get my own clients to pay me, and its the worst part of my job. It's awful, I hate having to ask for payment. We hired a woman this year who is a decent accountant but an absolute bulldog when it comes to calling up deadbeats and she's 100% worth it for that alone.
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Dec 21, 2023 03:23
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I'm the one person in the world who hates using two monitors. I also hate working from home. I am a bad millennial.
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Feb 15, 2024 06:06
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Good Citizen posted:I honestly prefer ultrawide Yeah, give me a wide single monitor. I'm quick flipping back and forth with alt-tab, but I'm also dumb and lose my cursor between screens.
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Feb 15, 2024 22:51
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My software is killing me this year. We use CCH Prosystems and for some loving reason they keep pushing back the release that will allow us to e-file returns with form 8283. We pay way too much for this software for such a basic form to be held up. I'd love to switch to a cheaper program next season but I've been using it going on 13 years and it and TaxslayerPro are the only programs I've ever used(and I hate the latter). Any recommendations on software with similar workflow and functionality? We do ~2,000 returns a year between business and personal.
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Feb 19, 2024 06:46
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mojo1701a posted:We had one staff member leave about a month ago, and now we're losing a second right at the beginning of tax season due to a family emergency. Must be nice to consider this the beginning of tax season, I've been booked non stop since the last week of January.
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Mar 6, 2024 17:34
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Annointed posted:I feel like a fool. I was clearing an account on quikbooks with an incorrect balance but instead credited to a wrong account. I have to wait until monday to fix my errors. Me, all the time, 13 years into my career. Mental lapses happen. Typos happen. Earlier this year I hosed up entering qualified dividends into a clients return, accidentally put $200,300 qualified dividends instead of $200 of qualified dividends and $300 of capital gains distributions. I guess the tab/enter key didn't register when I was inputting. We didn't notice until my client was reviewing the return after it was mailed to him. He's a high earner so I thought him getting some money back was just him overdoing his estimated taxes, turns out my software taxed $200K of his income at capital gains rate instead of ordinary income rates and he really needed to pay out $30K. I'm just glad it was noticed before April 15th.
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Apr 14, 2024 01:58
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