1040 Seminar Topics

New Legislation

This section will cover the latest developments out of Congress for the 2011 tax year. We will offer tax planning tips on implementing the new law and how the law will affect taxpayers in the following years.

IRS Update

We will cover new developments in tax preparer registration issues as well as:

• Taxpayer Advocacy Service
• Liens & Collections
• Taxpayer Rights
• Installment agreements
• E-filing paperwork and records requirement
• EFTPS

Ethics

Topics covered here will include:

• Best Practices associated with practice management
• Description of actual criminal cases/sanctions imposed by OPR
• Circular 230 revisions
• Recordkeeping requipments

Note: Our ethics covers the requirements under Circular 230 for EAs, CPAs, attorneys, and actuaries. However, our ethics program does NOT meet the requirements for the Washington CPA Society.

Long Term Care

• Asset Protection
• The law concerning transferring assets to qualify for Medicaid
• Comparing CLASS to long-term care insurance

Retirement

Always a popular topic � this year we will have an emphasis on RMDs and the rules that must be followed to avoid the 50% penalty. Also included will be :

• Roth IRAs including conversions, distributions and contributions to qualified charities
• IRAs including self-directed IRAs and inherited IRAs
• 60-day rollover rule
• Code Sec. 72 (t) exceptions
• Creditor protection

Small Business

This section will cover hot issues that affect small businesses including:

• 2010 Tax Legislation Issues such as reduced Social Security Tax withholding, small business tax credit, new hire retention credit and of course the 1099 changes.
• Economic Substance Doctrine
• Determining whether property was leased or purchased

Depreciation

Always something to learn and understand when it comes to depreciation and we will discuss various issues including:

• Bonus Depreciation
• Comparing Bonus Depreciation to Sec. 179 elections
• Recapture provisions
• Pass-through entities including trusts
• Correcting errors

Individual Taxpayer Issues

This topic presents the opportunities to discuss the issues that are most relevant to preparers of individual tax returns such as:

• Social Security repayment changes, claim of right doctrine
• Medicare requirement on investment income
• Injured Spouse Issues
• Release of Dependency Exemption
• HSA overpayments and Medicare Part A
• Computing Mutual Fund Basis
• Charitable Contributions
• Tax Effect of cashing in life insurance policies
• Tax provisions that are set to expire

International Taxation Issues

In our ever-increasing global society, tax issues are becoming more commonplace for all practitioners. In this area, we will cover:

• Credits related to when a company moves to a foreign country
• Employers with illegal aliens
• Foreign shareholders
• Annual Disclosure FBAR
• Military personnel serving in foreign countries
• Taxation issues when U.S. citizen marries non-U.S. citizen
• Effects of tax treaties
• �Social Security� from other countries
• Foreign earned income

Estate Planning 2011 and 2012

This area of taxation has been in limbo for the past 18 months � now some clarity on how to do estate planning for now and in the future. We will cover:

• Election to treat 2010 estate with 2011 rules
• Portability election including sharing exemptions
• Form 8939 � REVISED
• Amended return that includes basis allocation
• POAs
• GRATs

AMT

We will discuss the following items:

• Adjustments and preferences
• Adjustments that your software cannot compute automatically
• Minimum tax credit

Partnership

This section covers an in-depth look at some of the issues that partners in a partnership must deal with each year and an awareness of the items that partners should make sure are present in their partnership agreements such as:

• Code Sec. 754 election
• Code Sec. 743 adjustments
• Basis issues
• Self-employment tax with active and limited partners
• Partnership agreements

Rulings and Cases

Always a popular section -- this section will cover the latest news regarding regulations, revenue rulings, revenue procedures, tax court cases and private letter rulings.

Modified: June 10, 2011