Derek Foote, CPA

How did all the "get shit done" early risers manage to let them sneak in Dayligh Savings? I don't want to start my day in the dark again!

It's weird to be at a con and hear from someone who seemingly has little reverence or appreciation for the work that brought them here.

His first response to a Star Trek question was saying "I've never watched any of it."

"I don't know anything about anyone in Star Trek, including myself."

Seeing William Shatner at a con is an interesting experience.

He's a mix of rambling old man, grifter (lots of mentioning his upcoming albums), and kind of being a dick to people asking questions as a source of "humor."

Felt like a lot of being talked at with throwback his rambles for humor.

Did I say too many?! I like the tree facts!

A friend's pointed alternative.

What it feels like some days. #TaxSky #TaxBS

a tiny light brown dachshund is being held up by a human who is out of frame. they are at a beautiful snowy mountain range that looks straight out of a Pinterest photo. the dachshund pup, Frankie, is wearing a full body puffer jacket that matches her light brown fur perfectly.

This is Frankie. She just got a fancy new puffer and thinks she’s better than everyone now. And she is correct. 13/10 (IG: frankielasaucisse)

Here's an example of how complex PDX-metro taxes are (and taxes in general). I just transmitted three 1040s (individuals):

Two PDX sole proprietors and an s-corp owner with two states.

Fifteen tax returns. For three taxpayers.

Oh man, I had not heard this in forever.

"Let's go disappear into the woods," I said to my husband this morning.

Amended to "disappear to a cabin with all the amenities and fast internet" for clarification.

I have roughly a third of all my projects for this tax season currently on hold because the software has errors in Oregon filing.

One of those errors is hidden in the XML metadata that's part of the e-file transmission. You'd never know it's there, looking at the tax returns.

How to know you're a valued customer of a stupidly expensive professional tax software (this is sarcasm Thomson Reuters).

- Their only tech support or bug reporting is via the phone.

- I can't log into my account via Firefox, Edge, or Chrome to get my account information to make a call.

No brain, it is not time for weekend mode! It's not even Friday, and you work on Saturdays right now!

IRS delays continue to be a cause for disruption. Hopefully, this floodgate will be open next week. #TaxBS #TaxSky

- 18.75% of all my projects in the door are on hold.
- 20.30% behind prior year revenue.

When it does open, it'll be great, but it'll also mean less forward momentum catching up.

My "A" key started giving out yesterday. The intermittent drops were amusing for discord, annoying for work.

My attempts to clean and swap the switch only killed it for good.

So, new Keychron coming Saturday!

Hot-swapping my whole gaming keyboard for the time being. 🫤

Although something about a headache being "earned" feels unfair. Don't make it my fault!

There's a lot of AI in my industry too. I'm hopeful that it comes full circle. Everyone is jumping on AI to do things, and we're going to have hard lessons discovering what it didn't do well.

I hate when you have dreams that give you anxiety until your brain eventually wakes you up and goes "Derek, it wasn't real. You can stop worrying about it."

I suppose I could, but it'd change my whole delivery and invoice processing from what clients expect.

And until it's filed, it's still on my list in some capacity.

The big revenue windfall will be kinda exciting when it happens.

Forms 8995 and 1040-ES being in draft is really cramping my productivity as a taxpro focused on small businesses.

I've got a to-do list 100 projects long, and 20% of them are just waiting on final forms.

Thankfully, the queue is filling up a bucket, and now I have to drain it. It's not the fire hose or cresting tsunami of cut-off deadlines or no capacity management at all.

My tax season capacity queue is now full! It hit capacity a week earlier than last year.

New this year, I let clients "in" if their composite 1099s were still pending, but they had everything else ready. That accounts for 15 spots.

I've got a lot of work to do. 😬

#TaxBS #TaxSky

I have somewhere around 25 projects on hold pending final forms coming out of draft.

Even things like 8995 and 1040-ES are still in draft with UT. The partnership 8879 is in draft. Feels like the most I've ever held onto in a tax season.

#TaxBS #TaxSky

Got our Emerald City Comic Con badges in the mail! It'll be interesting to experience a larger-scale con and see what it has to offer. And it'll be a nice little outing to Seattle.

So what that it's in the middle of tax season, one long weekend away isn't going to hurt anything. :)

#TaxSky #TaxBS my tax season capacity queue tipped over 50% full today, so I sent out an email notification to everyone who wasn't in yet.

Man my inbox blew up FAST.

A few days late of finishing it by the end of January, but it's like four books worth of book!

#TaxSky #TaxBS Tax season is off to a slow start. Returns that could be finished are piling up as I wait for final tax forms and software updates to be released.

I've completed under a third of the volume I had by this time last year. 😬

The same is not true for quarterly estimates if you only pay at year-end. You would still be "underpaid" for the earlier quarters and exposeto penalties.

It's possible to avoid penalties with the right timing and mechanics. But it's tricky, unique for each person, and you have to be careful.

The upside is that it's treated "as if" the withholding came out all year and reduces the underpayment penalty exposure.

The downside is you would have little or no year-end paychecks, and those checks might not be enough to completely cover your anticipated taxes for the year.

You could claim "exempt" for most of 2026 and update your withholding before your final paychecks.

You would do all your withholding toward the end of the year.

This requires accurate updates with your HR/PR provider and means most, or all, of your final paychecks would be used for taxes.