What does your identity have to do with your income tax return?

What’s in a name? What’s the big deal about your identity? So what happened to make me want to talk about this subject? xxxx Recently, I was traveling on business and invited my husband to join me. Since my trip was for business, my expenses were deductible. My husband’s trip was not for business, it was for his pleasure; therefore, his expenses were not deductible. Some of you may have a spouse that also works in your business. If so, your spouse’s expenses may or may not be deductible. xxxx Our travel involved flying from Phoenix to Chicago and then back from Chicago to Phoenix. Phoenix Sky Harbor boasts to be one of the friendliest airports. Chicago’s O’Hare is also a great airport, but let me tell you about our adventure with our Transportation Security Administration, TSA. xxxx I understand the agents at TSA have an important job to do. And the people we met in both cities were certainly nice. We had our boarding passes and our luggage was checked. We were ready to have our carry-on luggage screened and our bodies x-rayed. At O’Hare, for the first time ever, we were detained. Steve’s ID and boarding pass were confiscated! TSA wanted more information. I could go on ahead but I said, “No. We will stay together.” xxxx When I ordered our airline tickets, I got one ticket for me and one ticket for Steve. I married Stephen E and purchased his ticket under that name. But do you know what? When he produced his photo ID (and it does look like him, no question) the name on his Arizona Driver’s License is not “Stephen E”, but “Steve E”. Could you ever imagine this would be a problem? It had never been a problem before. I didn’t know the documents wouldn’t match. I had never asked to see his driver’s license. I had never “carded” him before 😉 xxxx Steve said he had been in a hurry when he got that license. He introduced himself as “Steve” so it was just natural for him to write his name as “Steve”, that’s what he calls himself.  Sometimes that’s what I call him, too. You might imagine all the names I was calling him that day. Okay, not really. xxxx The TSA Agent who was holding Steve’s ID and boarding pass, escorted us back to the airline ticket counter. I felt like a criminal being detained, but we had done nothing wrong. Did the ticket agent feel this Steve E and Stephen E were one and the same? Thank goodness we had allowed additional time! After a small delay, and a smile from the TSA Agent, she took us back to the front of the security check in line. We went on our way and had a few minutes to spare before boarding our flight home. xxxx This incident made me think about my role as a tax return preparer. I am careful to make sure everything matches up for my client. Sometimes we find out that is not always the case. Sometimes it is the Internal Revenue Service or our state Department of Revenue that lets us know things don’t match up. xxxx When preparing your return, take the time to make sure your name is spelled correctly, that your Social Security Number is entered correctly, double check that your address is current.  This is where IRS will send any important correspondence and you don’t want that sent to anyone but you!