THE LEAP YEAR EDITION
2 MARCH 2012
TAKING THE LEAP!
What Did You Do With Your Extra 24 Hours?
Mother Nature’s been particularly kind this year. Not only did she grace most of the country with an unusually mild winter, but she also added an extra day to the calendar!
That’s great news for all of us — especially those of us who have been busy procrastinating on this year’s tax returns. Good news all around! You received the gift of an extra day (aren’t we always complaining about how we need more time?), and SC’s got you and your club members covered from A-Z. Read on …
On to more of this week’s headlines…
FILING YOUR CLUB’S TAX RETURN
Is it Mandatory for Every Investment Club?
The short answer is: Yes.
Although investment clubs formed as general partnerships don't have to pay taxes directly to the IRS, every investment club must file an informational return with the IRS. It doesn't matter how new your club is, whether you had any income during the year, or whether you bought or sold any securities — you must still file the appropriate forms with the IRS.
To learn more about which forms your club needs to submit as well as tax filing procedures for your state, see ICLUBcentral’s Frequently Asked Questions About Investment Club Tax Preparation.
Keep in mind that it isn't too late to order your Investment Club Tax Printer Software and that along with your software comes all the forms and support you and your club need to make filing your return both accurate and easy, such as:
- For Federal Returns, ICLUBcentral's Federal Club Tax Printer software includes all sections of Form 1065 and allows you to print out a Schedule K-1 for each member of your club.
- All clubs that are located in Arizona, California, Colorado, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, or Wisconsin must file a return with their state agencies. Fortunately, clubs in these states can use ICLUBcentral's State Club Tax Printer software to generate the necessary forms.
WHAT’S THE DEAL WITH “FINAL” AND “DRAFT” FORMS?
More Than a Dozen State Forms Now in Final Status!
If you’re new to the investment club world, you might be wondering what all the hullabaloo about “Draft” and “Final” forms is. What’s it all mean?
Tax printers are initially released using “draft” forms. Final forms will be released and automatically updated in your tax printer when forms are approved by the IRS and the appropriate state agencies, which could occur as early as mid-January or as late as early March. By installing the draft forms package, you can make sure that the program works correctly and that you have entered the necessary data properly.
Then, when final forms are released, you can quickly prepare and print final forms for your club members. You may not prepare your club tax filings before you have received final year-end documents from your club’s financial institutions, which by law don't have to arrive until Feb. 15.
With that in mind, here’s the current status of Federal and State forms:
- All Federal Forms: Final!
- State Forms for AZ, CA, CO, GA, IA, MA, MN, MO, NJ, IN, MD, NY, WI: Final!
- State Forms for PA: Draft
For the latest updates on form status for your state, be sure to check ICLUBcentral. For additional help with your club taxes, from ordering to IRS guidelines to support, check out these links:
Order Club Tax Printers
The Internal Revenue Service
Support for Tax Printers
GOOD FOR WHAT AILS YOU
SC Support Team to the Rescue
Our talented ICLUBcentral Support Staff is at it again! Team member Sean Pulrang recently posted solutions to some of your more taxing questions:
Aside from resetting a password or offering advice on how to handle a tricky transaction, here are the two most common cases we see during tax season, as well as the most common treatments:
Missing K-1s in Online Accounting:
- Symptom – The tax printer has been run, but K-1 forms appear only for withdrawn members.
- Causes – There are two very common reasons for no K-1s or K-1s only for withdrawn members:
- There is no valuation on Dec. 31
- There is no Allocation of Income and Expenses (Distribution of Earnings) for the tax year
- Treatment:
- Go to ACCOUNTING > UTILITIES > ALLOCATE INCOME AND EXPENSES.
- Choose last year from the drop-down menu, and click YES to continue.
- Fill in dividend and Unrecaptured Section 1250 gains (if appropriate) for any non-standard stock listed, then click OK to complete the allocation.
- The allocation is now complete.
- After the Allocation is generated and verified, go to TAXES > RUN
- Scroll down past the links to download completed forms, and click the Regenerate button near the bottom of the page; otherwise, the tax forms will still be the ones that were created without the completed allocation.
- Once the forms have been regenerated, all members who were active during the year will have K-1s available.
ERROR ! after clicking Finish in the Desktop printer:
- Symptom — The tax printer appears to operate correctly, except that when the Finish button is pressed, an error message appears.
- Causes — Most commonly this happens to folks with Windows Vista or Windows 7 if the Desktop program isn't set to run in admin mode.
- Treatment:
- With the tax printer and Club Accounting closed, click the WINDOWS button in the lower left corner of your screen.
- Go to COMPUTER > C:\ > PROGRAM FILES > ICLUBcentral > CLUB ACCOUNTING 3
- Note: If you have 64-bit windows, the path will be COMPUTER > C:\ > PROGRAM FILES (x86)> ICLUBcentral > CLUB ACCOUNTING 3
- Once inside the Club Accounting 3 folder, right-click on the Club Accounting 3 program icon (it will have the same green visor on a yellow and blue background as the shortcut that appears on the desktop or Start menu), then click PROPERTIES.
- On the properties window, click the COMPATIBILITY tab.
- On this tab, click RUN THIS PROGRAM AS ADMINISTRATOR.
- Click APPLY, then OK.
- If you have the User Account Control (also called UAC) active, Windows will now ask you to Cancel or Allow the program when you open it.
- Click ALLOW to let the program run as normal, and you will be able to complete your taxes.
Don’t forget that membership to StockCentral offers more than just the best investment club software in the world. SC also offers the support you and your club members need to get the most out of your software, as well as experts ready and waiting to answer your questions. Be sure to visit The Toolshed to see whether your question has already been answered, or to post a new question.
TODAY'S ENTIRELY RELEVANT QUOTATION
“The hardest thing in the world to understand is the income tax.”
— Albert Einstein