All Forum Posts by: Johann Jells

How does that answer the gentleman's question?  He asked about data organization.

I just copied this answer of mine from a similar question last week, I think spending hundreds of dollars a year on Quickbooks for a simple landlording business with no payroll is unjustified. 

I've been using Quicken to track my business expenses for 30 years, even before I had properties. You download your bank and card transactions into it, then categorize each one. From then on you can track whatever you want using the report function. I can easily look up what I spent on the water bills of a property for 2002.

I use one checking account and one credit card for each of my businesses, but rentals are one business, not bank accounts for each property.

There are several well known online services that do this, but it makes me nervous not having control of my data. I have 30 years worth of business data, with that new web service be around that long?

That's exactly what I did before the LLC, with a W2, schedule E and 2 schedule Cs. Maybe I can get back there...

Thanks all, I appreciate the comments regardless of whether they apply, as knowing the right questions to ask is half the game. FWIW we have no intention of selling anything anytime soon, but probably restructuring sooner rather than later is best. Getting good advice is going to be hard. 

We have our rental properties in the S corp, but no employee wages paid. We've not even been taking disbursement, just letting cash pile up since we formed it waiting for a buying opportunity. I really need to do my homework and try and understand the different forms of LLC better. Part of why we formed it as an S was trying to shield the assets for college financial aid purposes. That turned out to be hopeless, but fortunately the kids chose colleges that gave them decent merit scholarships, that helped a lot. But if dispensing with the S gets rid of all the separate forms for my wife and I and some of the other nonsense, I'm all for it.

Thanks.  I have a friend who was recently retired by Covid from a stint as an H&R location manager, I'll ask him what he thinks of the software. I guess at this point I have 6 month before starting in on this again. Unless the CPA ghosts me again on the 2019 returns.

Thanks Dan. Any idea if there's any difference between it and the TT product?  For $89 it seems like a steal, and it appears to do 1040s too, unlike the TT business version where I'd have to buy an additional personal version. Considering this guy just charged me $1000 for just the S-corp filings, and he give zero added value of advice, I need to do this next year. Trying to stiff him for this year's nonsense seems unwise at this point.

@David M. good question, I didn't mention that we've been filing as an S corp. It appears that may not have been the best structuring, but as I said I don't believe I've gotten the best advice from my accountant, who actually just popped up. A month without acknowledgement of receiving our tax data and on the very day I tell him we're through he says he mailed the LLC return draft to us that day. Still no sign of personal returns.

As for forms, it may be I just need to go slowly through to separate the key forms from the "noise". I know how to do that on a personal, but this I haven't done to that 1/4" of papers.

@Basit Siddiqi You seem to have skimmed my post too fast. Obviously I know about TT doing schedule E, as a I said I have been using it for years, and just as obviously if I've been doing that I know about the depreciation schedules. When I said "corporate grade" I simply meant capable of creating a return for a corporation, which as you must know involves much more than just a schedule E.

Most towns are very against this, it smacks of "bringing in the wrong people", ie, those who can't afford to buy or rent a house, which traditionally meant minorities. Get an attorney that specializes in zoning. Best way I know is to get the schedule of your zoning board and see which attorneys are always there. Do not trust a RE closing lawyer who thinks he can handle it. Rare is the lawyer who admits he has no idea how to handle something.