Posts by Charles Turner13

graniterider10 said:Sorted. I went down to the FBI office and the woman there told me that if the items aren't usable anymore, I should just write up a write-off report due to unserviceability, state that they were discarded, and that will be perfectly fine. It just means they stay on my list this year, but won't be there next year. If she says it's okay, then it's okay. She mentioned that it doesn't count as in-kind income because they aren't functional anymore. I also asked her if I needed any proof that they were tossed, and she said no.🎉 That’s how I’ll file it, and I’m just hoping it works out exactly like she said.🙂

I was at the IRS office today asking the clerk if I could hand-deliver Form DI, and she just shot me down immediately—said "not a chance, you have to use the e-filing system." I told her, "I know, but for all the assets where the book value is $0.00, I keep getting an error message saying my entry is incorrect." She just shrugged and said, "Oh, they probably messed up the programming again, but you still have to submit the form through the online portal."
Well, isn't that just wonderful? I have 44 items on my Form DI, all of which are currently in use, and their book value is $0.00 because they were fully depreciated ages ago. Yet, I still have to waste half a day manually entering everything from the FBI records into that infamous DI form.

I record the full card transaction amount directly to the checking account upon payment, rather than splitting it between cash and bank deposits. At the same time, I book the merchant processing fee—the difference between the gross sale and the actual settlement—to the checking account as an expense.
We receive our merchant statements right on schedule, alongside our regular bank statements.

shadowdrifter99 said:That's an interesting way to look at it, mostly because I never touch cards—debit or credit, doesn't matter. It’s strictly cash and carry for me. 👍
I might be totally off base here, but I was chatting with some ladies over at the IRS the other day, and they mentioned that if the receipt says cash, then that's how you book it.
As for the register totals—whether it's actual bills, checks, or cards—I just dump everything into the accounts receivable ledger as a cash payment, regardless of when it actually cleared, just for the sake of the sales tax calculation. Honestly, it’s a complete mess where you can't tell who's calling the shots... one person at the IRS gives you one set of instructions, then an inspector rolls up later and tries to audit you based on a completely different rulebook. At the end of the day, they don't really care about my bookkeeping methods as long as the sales tax and income tax are paid in full. 😛

For me, the register total is strictly cash; I record any card transactions as receivables from the merchant processor. I book the cash receipts as one lump sum on the last day of the month, whereas card receipts are booked exclusively once the funds hit the bank statement.
About 90% of people dealing with the IRS haven't a clue about accounting, since most of them graduated from cosmetology school and landed those jobs through connections, so I wouldn't take their advice too seriously.

shadowdrifter99 said:The point being made there is about the timing of the payment, not whether it's treated as cash or a bank deposit. It makes zero sense to claim a check counts as cash when the bank doesn't even drop the money into your account until the check actually clears.

It’s because a check can essentially be cashed out for physical currency once it clears, allowing it to be used to pay for goods and services (back when checks were much more common in daily transactions).
With a credit card slip, you don't have the money in hand; you just have a request for the processing company to transfer the equivalent amount into your business account.

Keith Martinez5 said:Honestly, if this weren't such a headache, it would almost be funny... I spent all of yesterday fixing my entire 2015 ledger because I had been closing out every single card transaction as a bank deposit—which, to me, is the most logical way to do it since that's where the money actually lands, rather than being physically in my Hand (which is the only true "cash" in my book). But apparently, under current tax rules, anything that isn't a wire transfer is treated as cash. I suspect that back when you were sitting in those lecture halls, this specific type of digital fiscalization didn't even exist yet... so they probably just didn't mention it! :P
Now I’m sitting here scrolling through all these threads, holding this frustrating little handheld terminal, trying to make sense of how everyone else is coding their entries... and I'm still lost. I work over at Silicon Valley, and some of these entries are automated by the software itself, so I can't even go in and manually tweak them... I'm still stuck looking like this🐔

If I recorded credit card payments as cash receipts, how on earth am I supposed to make my register balance?

I completely agree.
Back when I was still in college, they taught us that cash meant nothing but physical bills and checks—that was the only thing that truly counted toward revenue.
Sure, card transactions go through the tax reporting system, but they aren't technically cash payments, so for the last 15 years, I've been recording them as bank transfers in my KPI.
The tax reform law shouldn't be able to override the existing payment services law.

I don't think it's quite that straightforward.
What’s the deal with credit cards? Everything gets logged through the POS system, yet the funds aren't even being collected in cash—they're hitting a bank account via wire transfer, often after being shaved down by processing fees.
In my case, I receive a significant amount of foreign currency payments, which then requires me to convert them back to USD once the customer pays. For all of that, I still find myself having to submit formal written explanations regardless of this "famous" P-PPI system.

It doesn't make any sense to me either.
I entered the cash deposit into my checking account under section 2.1.
As for section 2, I can't even input anything because the system calculates everything automatically.
The wording under 2.1 is what really trips me up: "deposit of the amount shown under II.1."
But under II.1., I haven't listed a cash deposit; I've listed total cash flow. Part of that went into my checking account, part covered my cash expenses, and whatever small change was left stayed in the petty cash drawer.

Jack Young said:Yeah, just go ahead and grab a certificate for your business. Once you have that, your clients can just give you a Power of Attorney so you're cleared to file those forms with the IRS on their behalf.

Thanks for the input, Jack Young.
I actually called up Fidelity yesterday, and the representative suggested that since I only have three clients registered for sales tax, it might not be worth getting a business certificate under my own LLC (since I'm not registered for sales tax myself). She suggested they should just handle their own filings individually, and then they could simply hand me their hardware tokens so I can submit the paperwork to the IRS for them.

I was hoping someone could point me in the right direction. I’m still getting my bearings with the federal electronic filing system, and I have a quick question regarding the process. To submit forms to the IRS, should I be applying for a digital certificate under my own business name through a provider like DigiCert, or is it up to each of my individual clients to secure their own certificates? If it's the latter, how am I supposed to handle sending over their sales tax filings?😛😛