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An Irishman walks out of a bar... STOP LAUGHING IT COULD HAPPEN

Cathy has it right. No 1040x. Just respond to the notice, after calling to get a hold put on. If the first Cp2000 only expired a bit more than a month ago, a second CP2000 is generally then sent confirming the tax. The 90 day notice may not have been sent yet. If you get a hold put on the account, and have her change her address of record while you are on the phone with the service center, you can have that delayed as well to give you time to respond. Get the 8821 filed too.

Depends . . . (not refering to diapers) . . .

There is a great article and update about the problems of ATX in the Progressive Accountant. The article is dated March 5, 2013. The biggest take away is that while other software companies are responding very quickly to technical support issues, ATX is really lagging behind and in some cases, are not returning phone calls or e-mails (boy, what a surprise!). In any case, the link is below, but if the link doesn't work, just Google "The Progressive Accountant" + "ATX" - you will find it there... http://www.theprogressiveaccountant.com/tax/atx-taxworks-woes-continue-for-some.html

But she still doesn't own the apt. You know, I'm not even positive she has a lease. This is an "apt" between two buildings. It was an alleyway...and the owner converted it to a unit without heat (which is illegal). Her bf lived there....she moved in...bf ultimately moved out. She stayed. She stayed because the rent was really low due to the fact that there was no heat. This was 15 years ago. Oh...my rule is....I don't do anything that will get me in trouble. I don't do anything stupid. I don't do anything that I know will most likely cause future issues. I'm not wiling to spend hours of my time trying to prove myself wrong

I didn't upgrade to 12.9, but 12.10 has been working pretty good for me.

Yeah, I know it's a day early, but Governor LePage says I can start drinking at 6am St Patrick's Day, so I'll probably not be in any condition to post tomorrow. Guinness is like a breakfast all by itself anyway.

Thanks for your recomendation. I wil look into that because i am really excited about salesmen calling on me and showing me demos.

May the Wind at your back not be the result of the corned beef and cabbage you had for lunch.

JB, NO 1040X! It takes to long to process to rectify the problem. IRS wants to clear their files as soon as possible just as your client does. You can complete a Form 8889 for 2011 and attached it to the correspondence you send, along with proof from the 401(k) company in regard to the date the retirement was disbursed and also from the receiving trustee of the rollover if you don't see that information anywhere on the transcript when you get it. If the interest is hers, simply plug in the $50 to a dummy return you prepare for 2011 and tell IRS that she does agree with the additional $50 in income and the resulting difference that she owes IRS due to the additional interest. Good luck! Cathy P.S. Don't forget to charge accordingly, especially this time of year!!!!!!

You can also fill out form 8821 for tax information authorization. This will enable the IRS to speak with you. You can fill out the 2848 but as you said you didn't prepare the return and your credentials are such that the form is almost useless anyway.

I'm with Lion, I thought this would be a thread about me, yesterday. I had to take the night off, I was that fried. John & Taxed have given you some great suggestions. I agree with the creating the records in excel too. And for payroll, the state agencies and IRS will have copies of the filings. Another reason to backup everything online...I fear fire, and my scanner is my friend.

By the way, when I saw your topic I thought YOU were burned out. I was actually happy that it was your client with an actual fire (things can be recovered; people cannot) and not you under extreme stress with your health at risk. And, this is stress that you can hand back to your clients to solve. Give them a check list of all the good suggestions above, set them to work, and file an extension for now.

Actually, your wording bothers me a bit. Charging extra in such a situation is not, IMHO, "profiting from" the situation. It is compensating you for your extra work involved in rushing their return through.

Hey, maybe I found the problem with ATX?

Very sad news. The first thing I would do as their "tax guy" is advise them to file for an extension. Buy some time to recreate records. If it is a total loss was there business insurance, fire insurance? It will be a business casualty loss obviously. Get the police/fire dept. report to submit with return later. For income recreation, go to the bank and look at cash and check deposits for 2012. Go to sales tax dept. and get sales tax deposits for 2012. If they had employees you can get payroll tax deposits for 2012. Go to vendors and suppliers to get inventory purchases. If they paid with credit/debit card the bank can give you records. In otherwords these folks will have to do some work to recreate the records as best they can and hopefully they will be able to do it within 6 months. Actually right after the fire they should have contacted the financial institutions etc. to get backup copies. I would also advise the client not to swing in the air and make a wild guess. If you honestly don't know then leave it alone. These never turn out good when there is an audit. A partial amount that can be recreated is far better than 100% wild guess.

After getting bank statements, recording the transaction info in Excel is much better than using accounting software, (such as QB or Peachtree). And anyone who can type can be quickly trained to enter the raw data into excel, even if they have no accounting knowledge. This can even be suggested to the client that they do this in order to keep their costs down. Account coding can be done after the fact by somene knowledgeable in accounting terminology, and the end result given back to the client for their approval and sign-off. Bank statements will provide check number, date cleared, and amount. Hopefully they are banking a bank which prvides check images with the statement. But if not, having the info in Excel allows you to group by transaction amount so you can detect patterns. Repetitive amounts can quickly be isolated (loan payments, rent, etc) and only a single check copy obtained to support multiple transactions. Having the ability to group and rearrange based on amount, date, payee, etc can greatly facilitate coding the transactions to the proper expense accounts, too. Utility companies can be asked to provide account transcripts, which will help identify payees for those checks. Same for insurance companies, major vendors, and suppiers as has aleady been noted. Personal bank statements of the owner(s) can yield a records of deposits which tie back to checks on the bank statement if there were withdrawals. This is important because clients often say they're not making money when in fact they are taking personal withdrawals. They equate not "enough money in the bank" with "not making any money", when in fact they are just withdrawing money to live on and not recognizing it as profit. How many times have we tld a sole proprietor that their personal withdrawals are profit nd they respond "but I have to have money to live on."

What Mr. Marx should do after tax season - 1). Fire half the sales and customer service staff - they are useless at this point. 2). Hire better computer programmers and fire the ones who did a lousy job this year. 3). Allow customers to send him e-mails and contact him directly about their concerns. No "undelivered" e-mail addresses. Be a man. Hear what your customers have to say. 4). Offer ATX customers at least a 50% early renewal discount for next year. 5). Appear on the ATX Home Page and have a "State of the ATX address" and explain how ATX screwed up, and what ATX intends to do about fixing the mess. Again, be a man. 6). Do an internal audit and determine who screwed up within the company. Once you find the guilty parties, fire them. In short, the new ATX president should be in the front of this issue - not hiding behind his desk. The CCH sissy boy stuff has got to go. By getting in front of this problem early, addressing all concerns, offering solutions, and firing the bums who messed up, the new ATX president could demonstrate something that we haven't seen in CCH for a while - Integrity.

As we all know, trying to get to Tech Help at ATX is difficult. Many of the posts being put out address many of the same issues. Why can't ATX put forward a location on the Community, the Blog, the Knowledge base that clearly summarizes common problems and then publish the best solutions? I am dying on the vine, trying to ferret out various problems using a cantankerous search engine when I should be making money doing tax returns. FOR HEAVEN'S SAKE ATX HELP US!!

I paid for a piece of software that does not work and the company is not able to make it work. i have every right in the world to rant. If you want to sing the praises of ATX you'l have to try to sell that bridge to someone else - I am not buying it.

I do wish they had something like that over there, but there are so many repeat posts of the same issues that solutions get buried, and I doubt half the posters know how to use the search function. Or even bother to scroll down the page. Like the jerk in the post right above me that is answering every post here with the same rant.

On the 'other' board there is a thread called "Workarounds and Solutions", or something like that.