Employee benefit to include reimbursement for tax prep

[AZ-Tax]

One of my clients emailed and told me they will now have employee benefits in which part of their tax preparation fee will be reimbursed but the tax preparer must be an Enrolled Agent. Has any of your clients also have this employee benefit?

[Nashville]

No

Short answer is no. Can't speak for anyone else.

This will of course be taxable to the employee, but how many of these are able to deduct tax prep fee from their Schedule A? Few if any.

About the only uncontestable tax prep fee deductions are in cases of Schedule Cs, Fs, etc. Even then, some eager-beaver auditor will want to push a portion of my fee onto the Schedule A where it will disappear under the 2% threshhold. Last time this happened, I told the auditor to go ahead -- that my normal fee for a short form was about $35 (and that was the truth). The client busted in with his own comment -- "If I didn't have a business I would be doing my own taxes, free." Auditor looked like all the air had been let out of his balloon, and proceeded to audit something else.

[ChEAr$]

Billing for 1040's

Nashville's comment reminded me that we should all, when billing for 1040 work,
break down on the invoice total amounts charged for schedule c, cez, e, and f's,
including in the appropriate line item any other forms 4797, 4562, etc appropriate.

An invoice might look like this:

"Professional services - tax prep $ 400

includes:
schedule c (retail store) $ 100
schedule e (two rentals) 100

This way, next year's preparer will have the exact amounts for each schedule.

Too bad we can't get lawyers to break down their fees as to how much for
the divorce and how much for tax planning.

[outwest]

you know the answer..

to the attorney fee split: divorce 100%, tax planning zilch...

[JohnH]

My invoice looks like this:

"Professional Fee - $400

-if you watch me work - $500
-if you help me work - $600
-if you laugh at my work - $700
-if you cry after I'm done - back to $400

[Mo Sheets]

Hmmm....

Now that was FUNNY!!!! Can I borrow your invoicing methodology?

[MLINDER42]

employer reimbursement

I have several clients that there union reimburses for tax prep. I just fill out form and sign.Client hands it in and receives reimbursement.

[taxea]

Nashville's comment reminded me that we should all, when billing for 1040 work,
break down on the invoice total amounts charged for schedule c, cez, e, and f's,
including in the appropriate line item any other forms 4797, 4562, etc appropriate.

An invoice might look like this:

"Professional services - tax prep $ 400

includes:
schedule c (retail store) $ 100
schedule e (two rentals) 100

This way, next year's preparer will have the exact amounts for each schedule.

Too bad we can't get lawyers to break down their fees as to how much for
the divorce and how much for tax planning.

Chears...yes you can...ask your client to get a detailed billing from the atty that specifies what portion of the billing was for retention of income/tax planning

[Black Bart]

But Harlan,

Nashville's comment reminded me that we should all, when billing for 1040 work,
break down on the invoice total amounts charged for schedule c, cez, e, and f's....

If I do that, then I can't keep taking the whole thing off on Schedule C .