Just when we think we are organized and have a good system in place for tax season, a monkey wrench gets thrown into it and we are scrambling to figure out what to do. 

Two years ago, we had a whole new tax system to learn and a lot of explaining about dwindling refunds to attend to.  Last year was humming along smoothly when all of a sudden, we were breaking down the office and moving the computers to our houses.  I think a lot of you who had appointments around the time we moved home figured we’d be back in the office in a couple of weeks and didn’t send your paperwork to us electronically.  I guess it was good news for you that the season got extended.  For us, it was definitely not.  If 2020 has taught us anything at all, it is that everything can be done electronically.  Certainly if you can meet up with your friends, see a doctor, host multi-state, multi-country family dinners, sharing a little paperwork is not a big deal.  There are even some advantages to these electronic meetings.  No one has to drive home.  Darkness doesn’t stop a great discussion at book group.  You don’t have to clean the snow off your car to meet your son for dinner.  Your kitchen can become a Zumba studio so you don’t have to take your sweaty body out into the cold after class and if you mess up your moves, no one can see.  You get to see everyone in their home environment along with occasional visits from other family member and their pets. 

 This season, especially with the cases on the uptick, we are planning on completely virtual appointments.  Right now, we are still in the office but I am not sure if that will continue for all of tax season.  As we have for the last few years, we are requesting that you send your paperwork in at least a week in advance of your appointment.  Even if you don’t have access to a scanner, there are tools you can use on your phone which work pretty nicely.  One is called Genius Scan.  It’s a free app that can be downloaded easily.  You use the camera on your phone to take a picture of a document and the app converts it to a pdf.  It even tries to line it up nicely on the page.  Please examine the pictures or scans of your documents before you send them over.  We sometimes get illegible or hard to read documents that are useless.

 This year, we have fewer available appointments.  Last year was a nightmare trying to get people the necessary documents to file for stimulus checks, PPP and EIDL loans while also having a full tax schedule.  We are not booking any appointments in January so that we can help people file for loan forgiveness and also for the new round of PPP.  In addition, we have found, in the past, when we had appointments in January, often the information brought to the appointment was incomplete and we couldn’t finish the return or we filed it with the information we had and needed to amend it.

 The other reason we are booking fewer appointments is much more exciting.  My daughter Liz is due to deliver my first grandchild on February 28, 2021.  As a result, we left a lot of open appointments in the beginning of March.  I doubt, due to Covid, I will be able to see the baby until after she is released from the hospital. Still, I want to be able to the moment I can.  Once the baby is born, and we have a better handle on the Covid situation, I will be able to schedule more appointments around that time. 

 That being said, please don’t be alarmed if you are not able to get an appointment.  As nice as it is to catch up with you at tax time, this year we wouldn’t even be able to shake hands.  As long as your send your information to us, we should be able to process most returns without a face to face meeting.  If I can’t get to you, someone on the staff will call or email with any questions I have.  Since you are sending your returns electronically anyway, you can explain any special circumstances in an email.  If you absolutely can’t send your documents electronically, even if we have to close the office again, we can arrange a time for you to meet up with someone to get it.

 If we learned nothing else this year, we learned that electronics need to be embraced. 

 Last night was Christmas.  One of my friends works in a nursing home that once again has cases of Covid, so she didn’t want to meet with her daughter.  Another’s daughter is a nurse who had to work.  For whatever reason, there were a few of us that would have been spending the holiday alone.  Even though it’s not technically my holiday, I still usually see my family on Christmas for a Chinese dinner.  

 Figuring it wasn’t a traditional Christmas anyway, I ventured out in the afternoon to pick up some sushi.  The weather wasn’t too bad but as the sun went down, it got started to get chilly.  I was glad that my plan was to stay home. 

 A few minutes before our agreed upon time, I disconnected the laptop from its perch in the kitchen and set it on a snack table in my den. I logged onto messenger and started to invite friends.  Once their happy faces lit my screen, I snuggled into a blanket on my recliner.  After wishing each other happy holidays and catching up for a while, we all got out our cellphones and started an app called Psych, one of my family members introduced me to.  I started up a game called “The Truth Comes Out.” The app gave me a code for my game which I shared with my friends so they could join.  Once everyone logged in with their name, the game started asking very personal questions like, “If Eve were arrested tomorrow, it would be for?”  or “Beth’s superhero name would be?”  You type your answers into the phone and everyone votes on the best answer.  Of course, everyone tries to be funny, You get one point for each person who picks your answer and two if the person the question was about picks yours.  We had a ball.  What could have been a cold and lonely night turned into a laughfest.  Somehow it no longer felt like I was alone in my house on a holiday.  Someone  else found a murder mystery game we can play online for New Year’s Eve. Embrace electronics!

 Looking forward to virtually seeing you soon.

Sorry for getting this to you so late.  It’s just been that kind of a year.  Every time I turn around, it’s later than I think and I feel like I have to quicken my pace just to keep up with where I need to be.  Thankfully, for the most part, I am able to catch up.

Age-wise, this was a milestone year for me.  It is surreal to reach an age that seems completely incongruous with how you feel about yourself.  And yet, as much as you think you might not look or act that age, you can't deny how many years you've been on this earth.  While a very rigid Zumba schedule has given me better stamina today than I had twenty years ago, reading the fine print without assistance is just no longer an option for me.  I am very grateful to my dear friends Rand & Janeel Smith of Eyesmith in Kansas City for providing me with eyeglasses that I forget I'm wearing but make reading both paperwork and the computer screen possible.

With my advancing age, I realize I have had a relationship with many of you and/or your families for nearly thirty years.  It still amazes me that this is where my life ended up.

A few years after I got married, my husband and I moved from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn (ironically around the corner from where my son lives now) to Long Beach.  It was our introduction to the suburbs.  I was working in advertising and most of the executives made their way to the Hamptons for summer weekends.  To give them a head start on traffic, we worked through lunch Monday through Thursday and the office closed at noon on Friday.  Play my cards right, I could run down the stairs from my office in the Chrysler Building to Grand Central Station.  The number 7 train only took five minutes to get to Hunter's Point Avenue.  From there I could catch the LIRR and be in Long Beach in a little over an hour.  Our house was only a few blocks from the beach.  I could run in, walk the dogs, change real quick and still catch a few hours on the beach. 

When Eric was born, things changed.  Before that, I ran down to the  beach with just a towel and dropped myself down near someone who had a radio playing.  A Coney Island baby, I liked to spend most of my time in the water playing in the waves.  With a baby, I needed to pack for the beach like I was going on vacation.  The water was off limits unless I had my husband along and he wasn't the biggest fan of the beach. 

No doubt, Long Beach was gentrifying, but it hadn't gentrified yet.  In the Brooklyn neighborhood where I grew up, kids played outside all day and mothers opened the back windows and called down when dinner was ready.  There were basketball courts in all the driveways.  In our area of Long Beach, kids rarely played in the street.  Most of the families we spoke to sent their kids to private school.   My husband and I decided we had two options.  Either we could remodel the two bedroom house we were growing out of and start investigating private schools or move to a more suitable home in an area where the schools were better. Moving seemed the better option.

After the advertising agency I was working in shut down, I collected unemployment for the first time in my life.  I didn't think they would let me collect having a five month old at home, but I was wrong.  Between what we were paying for day care and my commute, I thought I was probably better off with unemployment.   At that time, they gave you a pink sheet of  paper to write down a list of all the companies you interviewed with.  The guy ahead of me on line told me he went on all the interviews that said car required and told them he didn't have a car or where the work location was far enough away that he could refuse the job if it was offered to him.

I took his advice and interviewed for a position in Brooklyn which I knew I could refuse.  The company sold trade specific products which were shipped to installers.  They had just acquired a three location chain that stocked products installers could pick up at the store rather than wait for delivery.  This would be an experiment to see if they wanted to open more locations like these throughout the country.  The person they would hire would  be responsible for getting the new locations in Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island on line, training the employees to use the computer system and running the office.  The job would run out of an office in the Brooklyn location with the person moving to headquarters in Syosset eventually.  The more I said I wasn't sure about driving all the way to Brooklyn especially with a new baby at home, the more money they offered me.  They liked that I spoke the language.  I wasn't sure if I should have been insulted.  In the end, I decided the money was too good to worry about being insulted, I took the job.

Those were fun days.  I had all of the benefits of working for a big corporation with none of the downsides.  No one was around.  I got a couple of polo shirts with the company logo and wore them to work with jeans and sneakers.  At first, the employees were very distrustful of me.  They thought I was the eyes and ears of corporate.  I fought a hard battle to get them all raises to pay for the cost of their contribution to health insurance.  They were all assured their pay would be the same.  Since they hadn't been contributing in the past, they were losing money.  Once they realized I was on their team, they worked with me to transition to the "stupid" new computer system and get all of their customers added to the database. 

All of the things I did in Brooklyn had entire departments to do them in Syosset.  I knew that once my three locations came "online" there would not be much left for me to do.  When I asked management what their long range plans were for me, I never got a consistent answer. 

Our Long Beach house was not ideal for raising children.  The main floor was just a big long room with a galley kitchen and a tiny den off it.  The staircase coming down from the second floor was dramatic, it spread at the bottom like a sweetheart staircase -- very hard to secure baby gates to.  The laundry facilities were in the basement and there was no door between the kitchen and the cement stairs going down to it.  The railing was shaky. In my mind, I was always seeing Eric tumbling down in his walker or me in a heap at the bottom still holding the laundry basket, bleeding into dirty laundry.    As Eric was getting more mobile, I was feeling the pressure to figure out what the company's plans were for me so we could figure out where to move.

Finally, after much nagging, I was told the Brooklyn office would be closing and I would be moving to Syosset. The company would be opening outlets in other parts of the country.   I would be on the expansion team.  I wasn't thrilled with having to work out of headquarters but I also felt I was in the highest position I could reach in Brooklyn.  It was time for me to figure a career path. Besides, if they kept me in Brooklyn, we had to consider Jersey. 

With the move to Syosset secured, my husband and I started to explore Long Island.  When a realtor showed us a nice big L Ranch in South Setauket Park, I couldn't have been happier.  There were kids playing at basketball hoops in the street.  The sprawling ranch had no dreaded basement steps.  The laundry room was right there on the first floor as were the bedrooms.  Eric could roll his walker from one end of the house to the other without a step in sight.  Sliding glass doors led to a backyard I could just open to let the dogs out.  No more walking two big dogs with a baby in a carrier strapped to my chest.  The tiny den where we spent all our time in  our old home would be replaced by a massive room that fit a sectional sofa all of us could spread out on.  We could eat meals in our kitchen.

While we were still waiting to close on our dream home, I sadly left the Brooklyn office and the friends I had made there.  I was given a computer and a cubicle at headquarters but very little to do.  My mantra became, "Do you have a project for me?"   I literally had nothing to do.  I probably should have kept my mouth shut and just kept getting my paychecks but that wisdom comes with age.  Eventually I was called into an office and told I was being let go -- not the best time on earth to learn you are pregnant.

Desperate for benefits, I applied for a job at Internal Revenue Service even though the pay was lousy.  I scored well enough on their test to be hired.  I attended a meeting of all the newly hired.  A woman told us what unit we'd be working in and when we would start training.  Then, she announced that if anyone had a vacation planned for January or any other reason they needed to take off that month, they should leave now.  I raised my hand, I said, "My due date is December 31st."

She said, "You can stay."  Those words changed my life.  It was my training at IRS that taught me where everything belonged on a tax return.  It was while I was training there that I realized  I could see a logic in it that didn't occur to most of the group.  I actually found the training given there a lot more useful than the academic version I  had to pay to suffer through years later when I went back to school. 

What seemed like some bad luck and wrong decisions, landed me here and I am very grateful for that.

Its not often, a mother says with pride, I have one child in the hospital and the other in jail but the world is a funny place. Eric continues to prosper at NYU Medical Center and Liz is now the Director of LGBTQ+ Initiatives  for the NYC Department of Corrections.   She often works on Riker's Island.  Here's her press release if anyone is interested.

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doc/media/director-LGBTQ.page

Not much news on the office front, James and Peter are still with me. 

Appointments are booking quickly.  February is already completely booked.  If you haven't made an appointment yet and you want one, please do.  Also, a reminder that we need your paperwork at least a week before your appointment.  Repeat offenders may incur a surcharge.

Looking forward to seeing you soon!

The prospect of an upcoming tax season is always a little daunting.  The prospect of an upcoming tax season with a whole new set of tax rules and a government in shut down mode is more than a little daunting.  The craziest thing is that the craziness actually feels like the new normal.  You could easily be drunk if you took a shot every time someone said the word "unprecedented" on the news.  Yet, as crazy as things get in this world, it somehow keeps on spinning.  The lights are still on and the stores are still crowded with holiday shoppers and shredded potatoes fried in oil are still delicious with apple sauce on top and a cold seltzer is still refreshing.   

            Sometimes it feels almost like I have a dull toothache.  I go out to dinner with a friend and we are laughing or I'm tearing up during an episode of This is Us and I'm distracted.  I forget that we are living through interesting times.   Then, the stupid tooth rears its ugly head and I remember that things are a little scary. 

            All that being said 2018 was very good to me.  It was a little hectic, even by my standards.  There was a day in May I took off from work to travel to Florida for my beloved Aunt Judy's 80th birthday party.  With a little free time to kill due to the flight's delay,  I wound up at the dealership trading in my car.  By the end of the week, my kids and I put the first 600 miles on my new car driving it up to Toronto for a wedding.  That weekend after we returned, I threw my very traditional/non-traditional girls a 50s themed bridal shower at Port Jeff Bowl.  We had frilly aprons and cat-eye glasses.  We sock hopped to ShaNaNa tunes,  dined on Nathan's hot dogs and fries and finished it off with Jello molds.  I honestly had no idea how tedious it could be to make a Jello mold or how beautiful one could be.

             The wedding was epic.  The Suffolk Theatre is a wonderful place to hold a party.  The staff is very warm and creative.  The food is amazing.  The place has a beautiful ambience if you like that old art deco theatre vibe.  The ceremony was unique and beautiful.  The vows were so touching, it was hard to listen without tearing up.  Afterward, the dance floor was hopping and I was happy to celebrate the night there.   

            The newlyweds were away most of the month of November in Disney World and then on a cruise.  I got daily text messages full of pictures of them in matching shirts and bride ears.  My favorite shirts say "We finish each other's sandwiches," which is so true.  It's the most amazing feeling to see your child looking truly happy.  Luckily for me, they came were back in time to have a nice Thanksgiving at our home.  So, everyone is well and happy and yet there is that dull toothache.

             So what is someone to do in these interesting times?  I decided to do something unprecedented myself.  At the beginning of the year, I incorporated a new company called Cool & Calculating Inc. to handle the monthly bookkeeping business.  Even though it makes sense for a lot of reasons, with all the goings on, I never wound up doing anything with it.  2019 is going to be Cool & Calculating's year.  Nothing is really going to change.  James will still answer the phone, Peter will still process bank statements and I will still do the taxes.  The only difference is we will have a much cooler moniker. 

            What more can be said?         

            When life hands you interesting times, you have no choice but to fry up some potato latkes, top them with apple sauce and eat with abandon.

             Happy Holidays to you and yours!

Eve's Holiday Blog

     I graduated college in May 1980.  A few short months later, there I was in my shoulder padded blazer and pumps trying to work the uniform and be the corporate executive I hoped to be.  Since my entrance to the executive world meandered through the secretarial pool, the advice I was given was not stay at the job where I got my foot in the door.  The other executives would always see me as the secretary who got promoted.   So not long after I was given my promotion, I started looking for work elsewhere.  I got very lucky and landed a dream job in a very up and coming advertising agency.  The man who hired me bragged that it was a very young and creative environment, that almost everyone who worked there was under forty.  Still in my early twenties, I thought that was a good thing, not that it was like allowing a bunch of toddlers to wander around without parental supervision.

            While I had hoped to end up on the creative side of the advertising industry, I had to come to terms with the fact that my natural talents lied in the figuring out budgets, in making accurate estimates, and I needed to stop fighting them.  Once I realized that, in some ways life got very good.  I got promoted to running the department that handled estimating, billing and trafficking of projects through the agency.  I got a nice office with a window and a couch.  I got a raise.  I got a secretary.  In some ways, it was not so good.  I was mortified to be found choking back tears in the bathroom by one of the more powerful women in the agency not long after the promotion was announced.  “I heard you just got promoted?  What are you upset about?” When I told her my degree was in marketing and I was now reporting to the controller so my career path effectively ended -- in order to go any further,  I'd need an accounting degree.   She looked at me and laughed.  “This place is exploding," she said. "Keep doing the good work you are doing and you never know where you’ll end up.”

            For a while, things really were great.  We were taking on so many new projects, everyone was scrambling to get things done.  Eventually, older wiser executives were hired for key positions and we seemed to be really thriving.   Our new health insurance plan had no copays, when 20% was normal.  Our Christmas party was a gala affair held at the Waldorf Astoria.  Then, something changed.  It eventually became clear the agency was not doing well financially.  The bills weren’t getting paid.  At first, we thought it was temporary and funny.  I was well aware of billing practices. Advertising agency profits are built into every job. The billing is done by marking up the actual cost of the project by a fixed percentage. There is almost no way to lose money. Something didn’t seem right.  We were told that overhead was too high, which was the only thing that made sense.  However, management seemed to be right on top of it.  We were going to downsize to save on rent. I got to move into the Chrysler building, where the executive offices were.  Not only was it a breathtakingly beautiful place to work, but it was mere steps from Grand Central station. I wound up having to share an office but it was with a friend who had a great sense of humor. We laughed all day.  I would jokingly feed the end of my adding machine tape into her machine when the supply cabinet was out.  Then, it became unfunny.  I had a tough time getting quotes from artists.  They didn’t want to work on our projects because they weren’t paid for work they’d done months ago.  Then it became personal.  We stopped getting reimbursed for our travel expenses and some of the people who traveled a lot had credit card bills that were getting scary.  No one was asking for a raise.  What was once a joyful place to work became exceedingly somber.

     When I first heard about trickle down economics, I thought it was a great idea.  Surely, I thought, if my agency paid less taxes, it would have more money.  It could pay its bills.  We could all get raises. 

     When the agency closed, we learned that profitability wasn’t our problem.  The problem was the owners kept taking the profits out of the business.  There were rumors of drug problems.  All the under forties grew up a little.  We had to realize that even though we busted our butts for the agency, the owners didn’t have our best interests at heart.

       I think we realized it as a country too.  Business owners aren’t always altruistic.  Often, when they are given a windfall, they keep it for themselves.  Trickle down is a ruse for bolster up.

     I never wound up getting that accounting degree.  For completely different reasons, I did eventually go back to school and get the equivalent, which was good enough for New York State to allow me to sit for the CPA exam.  If you told that twenty something girl crying over her ruined career that she would eventually be a CPA, she would have shook her head and chuckled. (That actually makes us even, because I chuckle when I see my young corporate self in those awful eighties blazers with nail polish dotted runs in my pantyhose.)  As John Lennon said, “Life is what happens to you while you’re too busy making other plans.”  It was a snaking path, but it landed me the honor and privilege of being your accountant and I am grateful for both that and the journey.

     Right now, generally speaking, things are going pretty well for me.  Plans are well underway for my daughter’s wedding this summer (slight change of plans from previously reported fall wedding), both kids have good jobs, business is good, Pete and James are still with me, we are all excited about Holly coming on board for tax season, Kevin and his family are coming back from China, and yet, like most people I speak to, I am feeling edgy.  As a news junkie, streaming news is the background noise of my life.  Up until now, the crazy things happening in Washington, while a constant source of worry, didn’t really affect my daily life.    Some of the things were even laughable.  Then, the tax system got turned on its ear.   Now, it’s not funny and it’s personal. 

     It’s not uncommon, this close to year end, for me to get a bunch of calls and emails asking, “Should I do something before year end?”  In normal years, clients are hoping to make some quick changes to affect the taxes they’re about to file, but this isn’t a normal year.  Even though I can never be absolutely certain what advice to give unless I have all the numbers in front of me, I don’t usually feel like I’m shooting in the dark.  I know who should think about buying a new truck, and who should clear out their closets and make a trip to Goodwill.  This year’s number one question by a long shot is, “Should I pay my 2018 property taxes before the end of this year?” For people with incomes over $120,700 and married couples with incomes over $160,900, often alternative minimum tax kicks in and reduces or eliminates the deductions for state and local taxes under the current system.  For those clients who’ve reached out to me, I’ve checked to see if, based on last year’s numbers, the property taxes would be fully deductible in 2017.  If they would be, I am advising, if it’s not a financial strain, to pay them.  There will be a benefit for 2017, and as far as I can tell, itemizing deductions for 2018 may not be feasible.  If you want to see if you were subject to alternative minimum tax last year, check out line 45 on page 2 of your return.  If there is a figure there, you were subject.

     I wish there was a link I could click that would let me see the new tax code so I could figure out how it will all work.  Unfortunately, IRS is still working on it.  Usually when changes are this sweeping they are phased in over time, not all dumped into the system in two short weeks.  It seems completely unrealistic to think that this bill can be implemented by January 1st.  I can’t see how IRS, an agency that takes thirty days to send correspondence saying they need another sixty days to respond to a one page letter, can possibly in the throes of one tax season, completely retool to incorporate major changes for another (although a friend of mine who worked there says they can.).  All I can do is assure you I will do my best to keep my eyes and ears open for any information I can find, and keep you apprised.  The problem is, I’m also about to go into the throes of tax season.

     Fun times ahead!

     Last year, due to having to collect license information as well as other niggling changes, it took a lot of time to get even simple returns acceptable for e-filing and to track them through the system.  While in the past, it has always been my pleasure to prepare your children’s taxes on the house, I need to start to account for the extra time it involves for the staff.  Starting this year, we will be charging $25 for each child’s return as long as the child is in school (any school).  Once they have graduated and are working, they will be billed at appropriate rates.

     I am looking forward to seeing you all in the new year. 18 is considered a lucky number in Judaism.  Let’s hope!