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Speaking of divorce... My daughter wanted a Barbie doll and not knowing much I went to the toy store and asked for help. The salesman said we have Malibu Barbie for $22.95 with beach towel and surfboard. We have Hollywood Barbie with 2 designer outfits and a small poodle for $26.95 and we have sports Barbie with a tennis racquet, golf clubs and a bowling ball for $24.95. We also have divorced Barbie for $300.95. When I asked why so expensive he said divorced Barbie comes with Kens house, Kens car and Kens boat.

Poor Ken that's what happens when you marry a Barbie!

At the time I took that bold move, I had another CPA. a non-CPA accountant, two data entry folks, a secretary and an office manager on my staff. I do not discuss the hourly fee with clients unless they tie me down and threaten to cut off my fingers one by one. The client's only concern is getting the job done at a price they can afford. Yes, occasionally we will have an objection to the fee. As they say, if you are not getting complaints about high fees, you are charging too little. But I am not smug about those complaints. I believe in providing value in exchange for the money. If the client complains, either his expectations were contorted or he does not appreciate what we do. In either case, I did not do my sales job properly. And on occasion, we will find that there was additional time that should have NOT been charged to the client, i.e, researching an issue for a half hour which could have been answered by asking someone else in the office that has already researched the issue. I look at and analyze every fee objection. And sometimes, the client chooses to go elsewhere. And that is valid. I can not be all things to everybody and I refuse to work for free unless the decision to work for free is a conscious decision on my part.

I am shocked that they are admiting it. The denials that it went all the way to the top of the IRS smells. On the other hand, I think these "non-profits" are mostly political and not social welfare, regardless of the political point of view they have. So I can see why the IRS is checking them out closely. In a way, I would like to see all politics banned from any non-profit organization. Then the IRS could deny their status if they show any political activity. However, targeting one political group is totally wrong and heads should roll for this. But they won't. Tom Hollister, CA

Yeah, right. And my clients the artists who sell paintings and glass sculptures on the internet suddenly have to know the rules for over 9,000 locations (states, counties, cities). "Level the playing field" -- balderdash. Put small businesses under more business-killing regulations, more like. How about cutting wasteful spending FIRST? We've all seen it in our business customers -- areas where spending is more than it should be -- and they CARE because it's their money. Any one of us could go to any governmental organization and find oodles of waste. There is NO incentive to cut spending (rather, strong DIS-incentives); no reward for being good stewards of the money taken from the people; and political pressure to just go along, to keep their own cushy jobs.

We could do a partnership you know. The standard ATX license goes for three installs. We could have Lodi, Hollister, and Modesto. Tom Hollister, CA

Have not seen you much on the boards this year, but, wanted to say Happy Birthday

There is a very good artilce on MSN today about the IRS apologizing for targeting Tea Party exempt organizations. They admit they did it, but deny anyone knew about it. I don't post links, but you can go to the website and see it on the money page. Tom Hollister, CA

I posted a lot of notes that I took at the Drake seminar this morning and that post is located in the Drake subforum found under "other vendor" so I won't repost here. The one thing for those of you evaluating or purchasing this summer: the company offers a full refund up until the initial program's release that comes out around Thanksgiving. The other thing is that this year for anyone that purchased on a PPR basis, the program won't be unlocked to unlimited use until 10/25/13. Here's a link to the other thread:

90% of the clients at the firm could care less about what caused the delays. 90% of my personal new clients could care less about what caused the delays. 100% of my personal returning clients were very understanding about what caused the delays. This year, gained 65 new, lost 10. Last year, gained 15 new, lost 3.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124260113149028331?mg=reno64-wsj.html%3Fdsk%3Dy GREAT ARTICLE IN WSJ Tax Audits Are No Laughing Matter A president shouldn't even joke about abusing IRS power. Barack Obama owes his presidency in no small part to the power of rhetoric. It's too bad he doesn't appreciate the damage that loose talk can do to America's tax system, even as exploding federal deficits make revenues more important than ever. At his Arizona State University commencement speech last Wednesday, Mr. Obama noted that ASU had refused to grant him an honorary degree, citing his lack of experience, and the controversy this had caused. He then demonstrated ASU's point by remarking, "I really thought this was much ado about nothing, but I do think we all learned an important lesson. I learned never again to pick another team over the Sun Devils in my NCAA brackets. . . . President [Michael] Crowe and the Board of Regents will soon learn all about being audited by the IRS." Just a joke about the power of the presidency. Made by Jay Leno it might have been funny. But as told by Mr. Obama, the actual president of the United States, it's hard to see the humor. Surely he's aware that other presidents, most notably Richard Nixon, have abused the power of the Internal Revenue Service to harass their political opponents. But that abuse generated a powerful backlash and with good reason. Should the IRS come to be seen as just a bunch of enforcers for whoever is in political power, the result would be an enormous loss of legitimacy for the tax system. One reason why Americans don't act like Italians is that they see the income-tax system as basically fair in execution. A tax audit or a tax-fraud prosecution is still seen, usually, as evidence that someone has done something wrong. If it comes instead to be seen as "just politics" then the moral component of the system will be gone. For the system to work, people have to believe that it is fundamentally fair. read the full article, it's excellent.

NEXT year is going to be worse with obamacare and the tax on passive income. No one is going to be happy with their returns for 2013.

You are right, this sort of thing is very wrong, no matter what the 'leaning' of the organization. As long as the organization is following the rules, which for political groups means 'educational' activities, I think they should be allowed the status.

An investigation by the Government Accountability Institute found that IRS audits for tax-exempt organizations have skyrocketed 79% under President Barack Obama. One Tea Party group, Tea Party Patriots, rejected the IRS apology. In a press release Friday afternoon, the group called for a direct apology from President Barack Obama, and for a congressional investigation: “The IRS has demonstrated the most disturbing, illegal and outrageous abuse of government power,” said Jenny Beth Martin, National Coordinator for Tea Party Patriots. “This deliberate targeting and harassment of tea party groups reaches a new low in illegal government activity and overreach. It is suspicious that the activity of these ‘low-level workers’ was unknown to IRS leadership at the time it occurred. President Obama must also apologize for his administration ignoring repeated complaints by these broad grassroots organizations of harassment by the IRS in 2012, and make concrete and transparent steps today to ensure this never happens again. We reject a simple apology that does nothing to alleviate the danger of this happening again. Only immediate and public actions on the part of the IRS and the president will suffice. “We demand the immediate resignation of all complicit in this activity and insist Congress investigate.” In April 2012, Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) published an op-ed at Breitbart News calling for such an inquiry, noting that state governments had once used similar tactics against civil rights organizations.

The other side is that most of these little state and community groups run on a shoestring. They are headed by volunteers, and their donations frequently come by way of a coffee can with a slit in the lid, left out at meetings. The burden put on many of these tiny groups was absolutely inexcusable. And two weeks to respond -- when the IRS sat on paperwork for a year and a half? Punitive or incompetent or both -- you decide.

I just posted the same story, with more detail, Tom. If I'd seen this I'd have put it here. I just have to wonder how much coverage this will get? Now, I know, if the same thing had happened during a GOP administration, with the target being liberal groups, the story would be HEADLINE NEWS throughout the media. Let's see how much coverage this one gets.

A missed opportunity to raise prices is lost forever. It is much more difficult to do a "catch-up" increase than to raise fees incrementally.

This was the perfect year to raise prices since it was so confusing and so much extra work had to be done. I had no complaints from anyone. Clients understood that each return needed extra work this year to make sure it was correct [due to fiscal cliff stuff not due to atx]

I have not had the chance to look at this years numbers too closely yet, but when doing the extensions, I believe I counted 10 or 12 clients that I did not hear from. Those amounted to approximately $2,500 in billings. I know that I picked up at least 20 more that represented about $7,500 in billings. Fair trade off in my book. Some fall off every year and some new ones come. My average turnover is way, way below the national average that some places suggest. So far below, actually, I am off their chart. My practice is pretty stable. In the interest of full discloser, I raise my rates for tax prep every year by a minimum of 5% and I also raise my minimum fee every year. Next year's minimum will be in the $180 to $190 range. When you start believing in yourself and your skills and believe that you should be compensated according, you will find that the market will agree with you. Our clients want us to be successful so they can tell all of their friends "we use xxxxxxxx to do our taxes". It is like a badge of honor they wear. Oh and I always like to mention when I discuss these things, I live and work in Podunk USA - town size of about 5,500 with no shortage of tax prep firms. If I can do it here, you can do it anywhere.

It was only in the very beginning that you had to download the new driver. Now, all (4) of my HP printers are working well with Win 7

A national sales tax is a stupid idea. The republic of ca is never going to cede their sales tax to Washington. It would be just another tax. Only someone with a leaning towards Rachel Maddow would really think that is a good idea. Tom Hollister, CA

In addition to being the IT guy they also mow the lawn, snowblow in the winter and do the oil change! Now try to get that type of talent from the Geek Squad!

It's called LOVE My two full grown (men) sons are my biggest supporters and sometimes my greatest dependents. Just sent a big bowl of home made chili home with one of them tonight.

Taxed, you could team up with one of those under or unemployed bookkeepers whom you trust, and farm out the crap work. Hiring an assistant this year didn't keep me below 105 hours a week, but she's learned fast and I'm looking for ways in keeping her more productive (as in hitting the buy button on one of the systems I mentioned in the resources thread). I've already billed a client to have her stand in line at the IRS to turn in a protective claim on April 15! She'll allow me to offer more bookkeeping and mop up work for disorganized clients. And I am a LOT less stressed and behind than I was at this time last year.

I bought another monitor but never got my desk clean enough to set it up yet. Lion inspired me to have the third in portrait; just makes sense! Btw, Dell is having a nice sale on win 7 systems. I'm looking to get my assistant off my old circa 2005 Dell laptop. I'm leaning towards an Inspiron 17R laptop with an I5 processor & 6GB Ram for $599. The screaming deal desktop is an i7 with 8GB Ram for $699. There's even a coupon for another $25 off and free shipping.

He is correct. Get strong hardware firewalls at the router (the conection out to the intenet) and turn off ALL software firewalls on all computers in the system. Things will work much better. 1st hand experience here.

I am using an old HP 12C financial calculator (circa 1987)! I love it.