Ugh - Clients

[dascpa]

Between Sunday and today (Tuesday) the entire world decided to get me their tax papers.  63 individual clients in less than three days (portal upload, drop off, meeting, etc.).  Only 3 had all their information.  I'm really getting tired of this start-stop, start-stop business.  Doesn't matter whether they the have a tax organizer, a checklist, a whatever.  This has to stop.  I need Fireball.....

[IRonMaN]

I was just mentioning the other day that we should be like Goodwill or one of the other places accepting donations of merchandise and just put a sign up some days saying we aren't accepting dropoffs today.

[Just-Lisa-Now-]

I got slammed with dropoffs, and mail ins the past few days as well, thankfully very few people want to use the portal, I dont want to have to open and print 18 freaking documents because you dont know how to scan them all into a single PDF! 

[PATAX]

Yeah same thing here. Yesterday real busy drop offs.

[TaxGuyBill]

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@dascpa wrote:

 Only 3 had all their information.  I'm really getting tired of this start-stop, start-stop business. 

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You need to charge them a PITA fee.  And in my opinion, TELL THEM you are charging a PITA fee due to them not giving you all of their information at once.

[PATAX]

@TaxGuyBill 👍now you sound like me.

[Accountant-Man]

Adobe allows you to combine PDFs very easily.

[shf1957]

I know how you all feel.  I am in the same boat.. between the paper drop offs, the email drop ins, and the phone constantly ringing with questions.etc...  Then it's start one.. missing stuff.. close the folder, start another same thing over and over again.. that when I go back to the first one with more info.. i don't know where I am at.. so i start it all over..    I am just a single worker/owner of this tax business.  I start in at 10am and work all day with only a couple of breaks for meals or bathroom breaks.. and keep going until I turn the computer off at by 3am.. 7 days a week.. and can't seem to catch up.  In-between that I have to also do some business's sales tax, road tax etc...   NOW I dread the ones with all the stock sales with all the different dates of sales... usually I enter each one since I haven't learned yet how to do it another way.  The ones coming soon have pages after pages of them...   Though on the good side of things, I got to refuse 2 new ones that were liars. I could tell by some of the info they gave me was not true.. round figures like 3000, 6000, 40,000.  etc...  it felt good to tell them to go back to who ever they previously had.. I am not the one for you!   Is there any video showing how to enter the stocks sales that all have different sale dates easier and faster?  Thanks for any and all of your help in advance.  People ask why I don't have help, loose lips sink ships... too small of a town up here.. everyone knows everyone...   Plus I should say to all you tax preparers "Thanks for your service"!    

[sewcpa]

You do know that type A & type D stock sales (where brokerage supplied the costs to IRS) you can enter the total proceeds and total costs for short term and totals for long term at the top of the 1099B worksheet?  (as long as not wash sales).  This change happened a couple of yrs ago and speeds up the process.

[PATAX]

@sewcpa you're right but that little exception called wash sales happens a lot with my clients.  wannabe Wolves of Wall Street to think they're going to beat the market. All they do is cause extra work for us.

[rcooley25]

 Contrary to what others have said I have not bought all the firebal that there is.

[PATAX]

@rcooley25 you tried to

[rcooley25]

At my age I need mre than a couple of bathroom breaks.

[dascpa]

@shf1957 Schedule D-8949 data has gone from forever to seconds (mostly).  

Other poster was correct, if no wash sales you can enter the grand total of Cat A and D in the top section of the  1099-B Worksheet "Form 8949 Reporting Exception Transactions", but only if there are no wash sales, basis adjustments, etc.  By doing it this way it bypasses Form 8949 and places the data directly onto Sch D.

I do not do it that way, mainly for presentation purposes.

In the Quick Entry Table below that section I will enter grand totals of Cat A and D as follows:   Property Description:  Short-Term (or Long) Covered Sales, Date Sold 12/31/22, Date Acquired Various, Sales Price the grand total, Cost of Other Basis the grand total, Disallowed Wash Sales the grand total and then mark the 8949 Box as A or D.  This way it presents itself on the proper 8949 page.

If I have multiple 1099-B's I'll add to the end info so the taxpayer can follow: Short-Term Covered Sales-RBC123, Short-Term Covered Sales-RBC567.  Again, for presentation purposes only.

For Cat B and E which typically have only a couple of entries I will list them individually since the IRS does not have cost basis they can match line by line.  But, if there are a ton of Cat B or E then I'll do a similar one line entry Short-Term Noncovered Sales and attach a pdf file to the return as a 8949 Attachment.

For Cat C or F you must enter everything.

I've posted before, I have one client who has 150,000 - 200,000 Sch D transactions.  He uses a software program to make hundreds to thousands of daily transactions (all for de minimis amounts).  I would spend a zillion years if I had to enter the transactions.  In the old days of sending in all as a .pdf attachment I had to buy a special program to shrink the attachment as the IRS only allows a 1mb file and his pdf was thousands of pages.

Bottom line, Sch D should become a few second process for you.  Now, if we could get the investment houses to calculate US Treasury and Tax-Exempt totals instead of giving us percentages for each investment life would be wonderful.

[linda2]

We type "see attached PDF" and attach a PDF of the 1099B. I enter the latest sell date, enter various for purchase and enter the total sales and cost basis.   I'm NOT entering all individual sales.

[BobKamman]

I subtract the wash sales total from the cost total and enter it on the A and D section.  All that IRS looks for is the proceeds total to match.  You can do it your way, if you prefer.  Mostly it's clients who aren't trading themselves -- they're paying the broker 1% a year so they can lose 6% and not just 5% on their money.  

[dascpa]

Won't disagree on the money manger huge fees, when they complain about our $200 fees. But i don't know how the IRS computers match up Sch D reporting so I personally would not subtract wash sales from cost basis.  If the brokerage has a column for it, I'm entering it that way so no playing pen pals with the IRS. In the end, as long as it works.

[BobKamman]

I do know how they match the numbers, that's why I'm not worried. 

[Accountant-Man]

Short term Sales, code A, Sold 12/31/22, Bought Various $$, $$. Done.

Short term Sales, code B, Sold 12/31/22, Bought Various $$, $$. Done.

Long term Sales, code D, Sold 12/31/22, Bought Various $$, $$. Done.

Long term Sales, code E, Sold 12/31/22, Bought Various $$, $$. Done.

Not hard at all. Wash sales be damned. I still enter as above.

[BobKamman]

I just don't know what to do with all these letters from IRS my clients are receiving that say, "We noticed your cost basis on Schedule D is less than what brokers reported to us -- please tell us if you want a refund check, or a direct deposit."