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OK, keep them but raise their price. A lot. And, tell all your nice clients you are taking new clients.

If you really want to help this client, convince them to change brokers. The broker is churning the investments and taking the money.

Kicking out a bad client makes room for two more good ones, ones you don't have to spend all that time explaining what they did to shoot themselves in the foot.

Dear Client, Yes, I know you have dyslexia and write out everything in great detail for yourself. And, I do appreciate your adding up all your income and expenses for me. But, please just send me your adding machine tape with your documents. Do NOT bother copying everything over for me on pretty cover sheets, as you transpose digits -- as you well know -- so I have to readd all your receipts anyway.

Dear Client, If you had not reused an old envelope, taping it shut with clear packing tape and taping all the pages along their long sides to the inside of the envelope, I might be able to read the account numbers, after separating the pages from the envelope, from each other, and cleaning my envelope opener from all the tape. I know your lawyer is charging a higher hourly rate than I do, so maybe you'll appreciate the price I charge you for your return with all those pages of trades. "I am preparing my mom's estate taxes with my lawyer and I am missing a 1099 from Bank of America. Could you check the Bank of America 1099(s) I included with the stuff I sent you and let me know which account(s) I sent you?"

Got a standard answer for this one -- "Topeka, Kansas." They don't like the answer - they asked the wrong question. Folks in Kansas may want to substitute "Nome, Alaska" or some other far away location. It has always astounded me how the shortest questions require the longest answers. For example, "How do you do payroll?" Or, "What _is_ AMT?" (Quick answer: alternative MAXIMUM tax.) Catherine