Posts by Arthur Thomas5

Has anyone actually managed to get the IRS website to function properly using either Firefox or Edge?

On Firefox, I can't even get past the login screen—it just keeps throwing an error saying no certificate was selected. Then, when I switch over to Edge, I can successfully log in, but for the life of me, I can't get any of the forms to digitally sign. It’s maddening.

Can someone please point me toward a direct link to download the necessary "software support" for Firefox? Their own official instructions are completely useless; there isn't a single download link to be found in their documentation.

The gender split—whether it's 90% women versus 10% men—doesn't actually change my point. If you have 90% women in high school or college pursuing a specific major, then obviously that ratio carries over into the workforce. But what I still find absolutely baffling is this phenomenon where, specifically within accounting firms rather than just general corporations, there are so many people performing the job who aren't even trained for it. Does any other profession exist where you see this many people doing the work without having the actual credentials? It’s absurd.

In my estimation, maybe only 20-30% of the people working in accounting firms actually hold a formal degree.

And as for those folks at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce—if they have even an ounce of integrity—they really ought to postpone this founding assembly. I was already on the verge of calling this whole thing a farce. What kind of "founding assembly" is it when only 100 or 200 hand-picked individuals get a seat at the table, while there are thousands of accounting firms out there? Anyone who wants to participate should actually have the opportunity. There is zero logic in being forced to pay membership dues if you aren't even allowed to participate. On top of that, they could have at least notified professional firms properly, instead of just burying some obscure notice deep on their website. Who has the time to refresh their homepage every five minutes just to see if there's an announcement? Regardless, I don't see myself participating, whether they reopen applications or not.

When you're filing those forms for sole proprietorships, how are you handling the taxpayer name field? Do you list the owner's full legal name, or do you go with the registered DBA name?

Where else? Honestly, I’m not happy with any of them. They all seem to be running things through some absolute joke of a system...

Where else in New York City can I get my glucose levels checked, besides those places in Beverly Hills?
Is there any decent private clinic out there that actually accepts Medicare?

If the benefits from an AICPA under the U.S. Chamber of Commerce are going to be just as hollow as the perks entrepreneurs get from the Chamber itself, then why even bother having such an association?

You’re forced to pay them, yet the return on investment is zero. In fact, they’re actively working against you—you’re stuck with a mandatory membership fee, but you won't see any actual value now, or ever.

It looks like just another bureaucratic entity designed for endless meetings about nothing. What’s the point? Other than providing a convenient way for some Republican Party or Democratic Party cronies to hitch themselves to state funding? Maybe they'll even use the Chamber's budget to fund a quick safari to Africa to hunt buffalo, much like their former president did. Honestly, the whole thing should be dismantled—the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, all its sub-associations, the lot. Abolish the membership fees entirely. If these organizations actually provided anything useful, people wouldn't be fleeing the country in droves. I don't see how this new association could possibly be any different; even if the people involved have the best intentions, they aren't going to achieve anything of substance.

Anyone lacking specific education—say, an economics degree or a specialized accounting track in high school—plus a requisite number of years of professional experience, should be legally barred from practicing accounting. Period. If practicing law without a license is both illegal and punishable for everyone except lawyers, why on earth would we allow a hair stylist or a chimney sweep to handle accounting? Can I suddenly decide to perform neurosurgery just because I *think* I know what I'm doing?

And let’s stop with this tired narrative that professionals with actual degrees are incompetent while these less-educated outsiders are somehow "visionaries." You can take that argument and throw it in the trash. I’ve worked with both groups, and in over 95% of cases, those with legitimate training—I'm talking real vocational schooling or a university degree, not some two-week crash course—are superior to those coming from outside the field, regardless of what other degree they might hold. There are exceptions, sure, but they're rare. Usually, the professionals are better.

Sure, a trained accountant might mechanically record entries correctly most of the time, but the second a non-standard situation arises, you realize they have no clue what they’re doing and can't see the big picture. Accounting isn't a skill you pick up in a fortnight. And for heaven's sake, people, stop conflating everything with accounting. Law is not accounting, no matter how many statutes and regulations an accountant memorizes every single day.

You’re posting in the wrong thread... but whatever, let's just get to it. You can simply book those expenses under the 2018 fiscal year using account 4xxx for prior period costs. Why on earth would you want to go back and mess with your 2016 or 2017 filings if those annual reports have already been submitted? It’s a headache you don't need. If you really want to be thorough, you could just write off those costs against your own company for those two years. That way, you won't show any rental expenses or even bother with any bookkeeping for that period—though, keep in mind, the individual owning the property still has to pay taxes even if it's handled as $0.00.

Are small business owners actually required to maintain an inventory log for low-value items, similar to how they have to track long-term fixed assets?

I can’t get into the IRS portal, and I have an urgent deadline to file a form.

My certificates completely vanished from the USB drive I use for the IRS site. When I launch ActivClient, it shows the USB smartcard reader is connected, but there isn't a single certificate in sight. Just... nothing.

Has anyone else run into this kind of mess?

Carol Price4 said:The situation with these business locations is a total mess—we actually have a meeting at the IRS today specifically about this...

I'll let you guys know if anything changes..

Do you honestly believe these meetings lead to any actual progress? Can you even squeeze an answer out of them as to why there’s zero support for Eporezn—no contact number, no help desk, and they just ignore every single email sent?
I think you mentioned a meeting regarding those sales tax forms before too, but what happened there? Absolutely nothing. Everything stayed exactly the same. And regarding the registration of business premises—if there hasn't been any movement by now, I find it hard to believe anything will happen at the eleventh hour when the deadline is staring us in the face. If they actually had any intention of scrapping this requirement, wouldn't the meeting have happened months ago? Instead, they wait until a day or two before the deadline when it's far too late for meaningful changes, after people have already wasted countless hours filling out these nonsensical forms. This law has been in effect since the start of the year—that's seven months of pure futility.

How are you handling the locations that aren't being used anymore? Are you verifying them just to close them out, or are you ignoring them entirely?
I took some time to dig through the legal code myself, and nowhere does it mention locations that have *already* been closed. It only refers to spaces that *are* closing or where activity *is being* conducted (present tense, not past). Does that mean we don't need to do anything for places that were shut down previously?

Section 19. (Federal Code 115/16, effective July 1, 2017)

"(1) Taxpayers subject to fiscalization under Section 15, Paragraph 2 of this Act are required to submit data to the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service regarding all business premises where business is being conducted.
(7) The taxpayer shall provide the date of closure for a business premise as specified in Section 2, Point 8 of this Article if the business premise is temporarily or permanently closing.
"
Transitional and Final Provisions from Federal Code 115/16
Section 19.
Taxpayers who submitted data regarding all business premises to the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service prior to the enactment of this Act are required, within 30 days of the effective date of Section 6 of this Act, to resubmit data for all business premises where they conduct business in accordance with Section 6 of this Act.

rowdypilot53 said:Perhaps you first need to verify the space as an open location before the system will allow you to change the status from "open" to "closed." It might be worth a try...

Oh, brilliant. Truly top-tier logic right there. 🙏 So, I’m supposed to take a business location that hasn't seen a soul in years and first "verify" it as active just so I can shut it down? 😲 Seriously, does the IRS have an entire dedicated department just for dreaming up this kind of absolute nonsense? Is it even possible to be more incompetent than this?

Is it even certain that I'm required to go through this whole verification dance before closing them, or can I just leave them unverified? It makes zero sense to me—why on earth would I be forced to retroactively "open" and then immediately "close" locations that stopped operating LONG BEFORE this law even went into effect?

placidlynx92 said:Regarding that second point, you just enter the date the space was vacated; the catch is you can't pick a retroactive date—it only lets you select the day you actually filed with the IRS.
As for that SAVE button, I have no idea why it’s ghosting you. Maybe a field was missed? It works fine for me whenever I submit an update 🤔

But where am I supposed to enter the closing date for the office space?
Under the "Office Space" window, all I see are two options: Status: Open, and Opening Date: today's date. And get this—those fields are locked. There isn't a single input box for a Closing Date anywhere on the screen. How am I even supposed to find it???

Is there even a legal requirement to "close" these business spaces through the IRS portal? Wouldn't it be more logical if an unverified status automatically triggered a closure?

And how on earth am I supposed to reach their support team for this specific form?
I'll say it again: I am absolutely fed up with this entire mess. From the Secretary of the Treasury down to the IRS bureaucrats who rolled out this garbage, and then to the FBI and their cronies who clearly couldn't build a functional web form if their lives depended on it. They don't reply to emails, there's no contact number, and this half-baked excuse for a form hasn't been fixed despite the deadline being just days away. This law has been in effect for seven months now, yet they've only started actually working on a functional version a couple of weeks ago. Unbelievable.

I filled out every single field in this commercial lease application form, yet the Save button is completely unresponsive. Just wonderful. After wasting an absolute eternity grinding through this thing 🤦, I’m stuck. When I hit the validation check on all those various windows, does it flag anything? No. Not a single error message appears.

The Back and Top buttons next to the Save button work just fine. So, what am I missing here? What am I doing wrong? They churned out fifty pages of instructions, yet they can't even manage to make a system where you can actually save your data.

It’s pathetic. They build these half-baked, useless digital forms for data they probably already have sitting in some other database anyway.

And one more thing—what is the deal with the spaces that aren't even in use anymore? The system keeps listing them as active and unverified in my business premises list. Am I supposed to "close" them out and remove them? And if so, how the hell am I supposed to do that?

So, looking at this new tax portal... it’s still missing the most basic forms. For instance, they still haven't even implemented the income tax filing forms for small business owners?

I mean, seriously, what on earth are they actually doing over there? They've been running this digital tax system for a decade now—ten whole years—and they *still* haven't managed to build one simple form? Is anyone actually working?

Arthur Lopez3 said:The old way via the fiscal register stays valid until June 30th. Starting July 1st, everything shifts to the IRS portal.

Everyone will also be required to log into the IRS portal by July 31st at the latest to confirm the data they submitted before June 30th. You'll also need to manually enter the details for the software manufacturer and/or service provider.

Where on earth are you getting that from? I don't see anything like that in the actual legislation.

Isn't the registration for the workspace supposed to be done via the IRS portal by June 30th?
Has there even been any release of the official filing forms on the IRS site yet?

Jonathan Garcia said:So here's the deal: they're coming after him for all those back taxes and contributions from January 1, 2014, through October 9, 2015. That’s the exact window when his bankruptcy was filed and wrapped up, and he was officially removed from the board. He didn't have a contract with his own company, wasn't working anywhere else, and always stayed on top of filing and de-registering employees. No one ever gave him a heads-up about any issues.
The pre-bankruptcy proceedings actually started back in December 2013, which is when the SEC sent the court the order to initiate the bankruptcy—but unfortunately, it dragged on for nearly two years before it was finally closed out.
Everything was properly wiped from the corporate registry, yet now he's suddenly getting these tax bills in the mail.
When he went to the IRS, they just told him they're simply following whatever Medicare decided—which, by the way, Medicare never even sent him a notice about—and said he should go file an appeal with them instead.
Naturally, when he checked with Medicare, they just told him to take it up with the IRS.

But did he actually pay any Social Security or Medicare taxes during that stretch? And if so, under what status—was he paying for himself, or was the company covering him?

It was a massive blunder not having a contract. The laws are fundamentally broken, and when a mistake like that catches up to you after such a long time, the price tag is astronomical.
If he lacked an employment contract with his own firm and wasn't covered under some other legal provision, then the monthly base for corporate officers—roughly around $2667, I can't recall the exact figure right now and I really don't feel like digging it up—would be applied. In this scenario, the liability falls on the officer personally rather than the company; essentially, the officer should have registered themselves with Medicare and Social Security as a corporate officer and paid the dues accordingly. If you take that base, tack on the 20% payroll tax and the 17% employer portion, you end up looking at roughly $2,950 a month. Multiply that by 21 months and you get approximately $21, which is almost exactly what they calculated.

Had he actually had an employment contract with his company, he could have been registered at the federal minimum wage level, which would have kept those contributions much lower. He might have even been able to scale it down further by working part-time—maybe just one hour a day—to pay contributions based on a tiny amount like $133, maybe around $33 per month. There was a time when authorities used to push officers into those kinds of contracts, though word is they've stopped doing that for now.

In short: he scored an absolute own goal, whether it was his own fault or due to a bookkeeper who failed to warn him about the pitfalls. I honestly fear there’s no easy fix here, unless he can somehow argue statute of limitations or find some other legal loophole through a lawyer. That’s probably his only shot.

Is there actually some kind of logical explanation for why certain forms just can't be filed through the e-portal, even after all these years since they launched the system? For instance, take small business owners—they still can't submit their annual income tax returns or the specific business activity filings online...

And when exactly did that happen? This year, last year—when was he officially scrubbed from the board of directors?

You didn't even specify what the allegations are. Are we talking about unpaid Medicare premiums, Social Security taxes, or the whole messy combination of both? Go check the records and actually say so.

You also left out whether he even had an employment contract with his own company, let alone the salary involved. We can't just read tea leaves and guess here; once you lay out the facts, maybe then the picture will be any clearer.

Jonathan Garcia said:Thanks for the advice! First, they tried out a settlement agreement, but since that fell through, the SEC stepped in and ordered the bankruptcy.
The bankruptcy was supposed to kick off within 120 days, but we didn't even see a first hearing until six months later. At that hearing, the judge decided to trigger both the start and the end of the proceedings at once, gave us some window to appeal, and then—after a whole year and a half—the final bankruptcy ruling finally dropped.
And now, they’re trying to hit him with back taxes for that entire period.

When exactly was he scrubbed from the corporate registry?

Jonathan Garcia said:So here’s the situation: someone I know is facing $20 back taxes because of unpaid payroll contributions (he was a board member at the time and wasn't employed anywhere else).
They’re coming after him for the period from January 1, 2014, all the way until the bankruptcy wrapped up.
The pre-bankruptcy settlement process actually kicked off back in 2013, but since they didn't meet the requirements, the IRS ordered them to move straight into formal bankruptcy—which, unfortunately, didn't officially close out until October 2015.
To make matters even worse, the tax authorities actually tried to dissolve the company in early 2014 since there were zero assets or employees left, but they backed off because the bankruptcy was already underway.
Is it seriously possible that an owner is being penalized just for trying to do things by the book? It feels like he's being stuck with the bill for the entire time the courts dragged their feet on the bankruptcy proceedings!

It’s pure, unadulterated madness. Someone always has to pay for all these bureaucrats, doesn't he? I can't believe they're starting up with this nonsense again. There was a time when they weren't chasing people down with this stupidity; they started playing these games around 2015, then stopped last year... and now we're back to this? Are you kidding me?

Did he have an employment contract with his own company, and if so, what was the salary amount?
When did the ruling come through, and from whom—the IRS or Medicare?
Are they charging him just for health insurance premiums, or for Social Security contributions too?

The whole thing stinks. For one, the law changed on January 1, 2017, when these absurdities were supposedly abolished, so there shouldn't even be a basis for collecting anything from 2017 onwards.

And also, if the company is in bankruptcy, has a trustee been appointed yet?
If a trustee has been assigned, then the former board member effectively ceased to be a board member, which should mean there's no legal basis to collect those contributions from the moment the bankruptcy opened until today.

As for the period before the bankruptcy was officially triggered? That's a total gray area. But honestly, what does he have to lose? He might as well file a grievance. And frankly, he should probably thank those 151 clowns in Congress back in 2014—most of whom, whether they were Democrats or Republicans, likely voted for this exact same mess. As one former representative used to say: "it's just different packaging for the same garbage."
Here is the list: http://www.congress.gov/members. Most of them are still active today.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but even during that murky, dark period when the laws were conflicting, the only real dispute was over health insurance premiums. There was never any doubt regarding Social Security contributions; those were always supposed to match the amount stated in the employment contract, even if someone was working for their own firm.