Seriously, don't f*** with the IRS.

I'm pretty sure my dad gets businesses to cave by boring them to death with long stories that don't ever seem to go anywhere

 

edit: actually, I had a situation like jenks a couple of years back. I forgot my TD-A stuff, so they came back and said I owed a couple hundred dollars. Well, I had actually lost money that year, so I filed an amended return and pointed out that they, in fact, owed me money. But if I had owed them money, "oops, I forgot this account!" wasn't going to get me out of my penalties.

Edited February 7, 201313 yr by StrangeSox

Seriously, don't f*** with the IRS.

 

I'd argue that the referral was related to performance of services. Hard to argue anything other then that from a tax code perspective. I think its clearly income, the bigger question is whether they'd ever be able to figure it out.

 

I didn't perform any services for him. He was paid a referral fee from my firm, and he gave me a thank you gift. I think this differs from being given a direct referral bonus (gift card) which is something that's put out there as compensation for doing something. I'm having my dad check with an IRS guy he knows. I don't see how this would be any different than him taking me out to dinner or buying me a gift. I'd still have to disclose the value of that gift, but it still a gift that isn't taxable up until a certain amount.

 

I mean, i'm going to pay it and not screw with it. But being an attorney, I'm now on a mission to find out what the real answer is here.

That quid-pro-quo stuff related to business transactions can still be counted as income I think.

 

I'll run it by my dad this weekend and see what he says.

And my refund has arrived.

 

Yay, Government!

Apparently the IRS isn't prepared to accept the depreciation form, so I have to wait til late February or March for my 10k refund. Boo government.

My situation has fluctuated a lot over the last few years. One kid has aged out of the tax credit, gone to college, and incurred college loan interest. The other kid is approaching the age out of the tax credit in a year or so. Distributions from mutual funds, deductions fading to nothing. And both kids worked this year, so I will have to do their tax returns too. Last year we got over $2K back, but I really don't know how close we will be to that again this year.

 

SMO