I hate time sheets. I did them for years and hated every bit of it. I hated having to account for every speck of my time. I hated that my bosses looked at my hours first and my work second. I hated hearing that I did a great job, but "how are we going to bill for the all the hours you put in on this project?" I hated listening to coworkers talk about double-billing their time to multiple clients, and then goofing off because they had figured out how to fudge extra hours into their time sheets.

Most tax preparers have encountered the client who can't quite distinguish that fine line between a hobby and business. It's up to the tax professional to explain the rules and, in many cases, help the client position what could be called a hobby so it can be considered a bona fide business activity in the eyes of the IRS. Ken Berry's article about a recent Tax Court case in which a documentary filmmaker with a day job as an attorney faced off with the IRS on the hobby loss rules.