Telephone tax rebate

[TaxDan]

I was just wondering your thoughts on this new telephone tax rebate. A number of us have been doing taxes for many years and have had clients die during the rebate period. Of course the deceased tax payer had a telephone during this period so, I am thinking about filing the short form telephone tax rebate form for the deceased on those clients that I still do relatives tax returns. If I attach the form 1310 to the return and have their relatives sign it, do you think the IRS will refund the monies...

What are your thoughts...

[Brad Imsdahl]

I suppose they will. Do you really want to do that? How much are you going to charge to get the beneficiaries of your former client a $30 refund?

[solomon]

Notice

I believe Notice 2007-11 addresses this.

[Chief]

1040 Ez T

I have decided that I will charge clients $5 for filing this form with a return and $7 for nonclients. I want to keep the handling of this form simple and inexpensive for clients and nonclients.

Mainly this is an opportunity for an effective system of adverising my practice.

[Black Bart]

The Lazarus Refund

I suppose they will.

What if the guy died five years ago?

[Bird Legs]

Signing the return.

Doesn't the person whose name is on the form have to be the one to sign?

[Brad Imsdahl]

What if the guy died five years ago?

Five years ago is before February 28, 2003. It only applies to those who were billed after February 28, 2003 and before August 1, 2006.

[Snaggletooth]

Overkill

I believe the IRS set the dollarized credit at a certain level in order to bail out of the administrative bungling which would result from various contortions of circumstances.

Congrats to Chief for creating an advertising vehicle, but in general I believe the
IRS is going to be very matter-of-fact in refunding the same amount of money as they
have proposed to all individual taxpayers. The amount is small enough that you are
going to be able to move a mountain easier than to get IRS to budge on this.

Deaths of taxpayers, incoming and outgoing citizens, special telephones, etc. are not going to get the IRS to create reams and reams of rulings and regulations on this.
I plan to take the credit for all eligible taxpayers and beyond that, forget it.

I can just see it now....clients coming in with three years worth of telephone bills, alternate credit schemes, weighted average calculations, etc. Sorry Charlie. No cigar....

[Black Bart]

Same here.

...I believe the IRS is going to be very matter-of-fact in refunding the same amount of money as they have proposed to all individual taxpayers...

I plan to take the credit for all eligible taxpayers and beyond that, forget it.

Just joking about Mr. Lazarus -- I'm not doing any of these separate from a tax return unless they want to pay the price of doing a tax return (and they won't want to do that), because little nit-pickin' stuff like this is a real pain during tax season -- just takes up a lot of time and you can't get any money out of it. Not to mention it's typical IRS hoopla -- much ado about nothing substantial (like the $500-capped enviro credit).

I, also, think IRS won't get involved in deep paper with this; the administrative burden would far outweigh any positive aspects. Much simpler just to pay up the flat amount, agree to all reasonable claims in excess of that amount, and be done with it.