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The entire concept of "the rule of law" (the opposite being rule by fallible and favorite-playing mankind) is that the law be applied equally to all, without regard to ANY factor outside the actual law. What should have absolutely NO bearing is social status, political leanings, hair color, skin color, number of teeth, number of friends in "high" places, depth of checking account, dwelling in mansion or trailer. So if one wishes to live (or lives in a country that claims to adhere to) under the rule of law, ANY time a (legal, properly passed, Constitutional) law is bent, twisted, or broken to accommodate one group - or punish a different group - that must be stopped, for the safety and the good of all.

Plug if you need to -- but tell the folks that TTx made some prior-year errors you *will* need to fix going forward. Additional charge after 9/15 (heck, after 10/15 if you're busy) to get the numbers straight for next year. Next year the correction will read "adjustment for prior-year errors" on the balance sheet and your notes will be back-up. I had some folks come to me a couple years ago with these same kinds of errors. How bad could it be, I thought (silly me!) after only 14 months (one short year return, one regular year return, done by CPA who must have been senile and then died before end of 2nd full year). It was absolutely and utterly wrong from Day 1 and it cost them more to fix the accounting disaster afterwards than it cost to do the return. The good news was that day-to-day operations were OK. The bad news is that EVERY equity account was wrong. Assets, liabilities, equipment (mucked up state depreciation) , AAA, OAA, retained earnings -- all came from la-la land. Took me two years to get it really right. I think it's right. I hope and pray it's right. It's way "righter" than it was, at least. Let's just say I no longer want to lock myself in the front hall closet with a 14-oz bag of Skittles when they send their info in.

You are correct, Sara, but it is important that the rule be applied fairly and equally. As long as 'favored' groups like the Sierra Club, for example, are allowed tax-exempt status while doing a lot of political lobbying, etc, they should have to apply the same lenient rules to conservative groups.

Ralph and Edna were both patients in a mental hospital. One day while they were walking past the hospital swimming pool, Ralph suddenly jumped into the deep end. He sank to the bottom of the pool and stayed there. Edna promptly jumped in to save him. She swam to the bottom and pulled him out. When the Head Nurse Director became aware of Edna's heroic act she immediately ordered her to be discharged from the hospital, as she now considered her to be mentally stable. When she went to tell Edna the news she said, 'Edna, I have good news and bad news. The good news is you're being discharged, since you were able to rationally respond to a crisis by jumping in and saving the life of the person you love... I have concluded that your act displays sound mindedness. The bad news is, Ralph hung himself in the bathroom with his bathrobe belt right after you saved him. I am so sorry, but he's dead.' Edna replied, 'He didn't hang himself, I put him there to dry. How soon can I go home?'

Once a woman invited some people to dinner. At the table, she turned to their six-year-old daughter and said, "Would you like to say the blessing?" she said. "I wouldn't know what to say," the girl replied. "Just say what you hear mommy say," the woman answered. The daughter bowed her head and said, "Lord, why on earth did I invite all these people to dinner?".

Beta testers, I believe a large undecided amount of ATX users are going to making final decisions on your results!! Best wishes for factual testing and results. Unfortunatley we don't get that from headquarters. Keep beating it up and throwing some crumbs to the suffering uninformed. Jerry

Yes QB has its own good points and headache spots. The case I mentioned the guy split opening equity between the two owners and their two businesses -- when it was loans, not cash, from one shareholder's family members, to be repaid with interest, and split unequally between the two businesses. Plus two bank loans (one for each business) that he split both, equally, between the two. It was a nightmare. Thanks heavens for hair dye, is all I can say.

Catherine's story sounds pretty bad. I'll tell a quick story of how it could be thought that I'd made mistakes like that if another preparer were to follow me on one particular client. This is one of my largest business clients, C corp, a retailer with multiple store locations, larger # of vendors, uses QuickBooks and has a full time bookkeeper. Bookkeeper is pretty good and calls me when she doesn't know how to post. This client gets a review financial statement because of large line of credit with the bank. One thing bookkeeper & QuickBooks did that threw prior year numbers out of whack for a/p, retained earnings, several cost of sales accounts, and net income was the way she was entering vendor credits issued many months after year-end. Some of the company's vendors allow very generous terms where payments are spread over 6 months or more, and company always has purchases from these vendors just before their year end because of a large trade show held shortly before that date. The vendor credits occurred after I've completed my work and issued the statement and tax return, and the credits offset a portion of the unpaid balance on invoices for purchases prior to the year end I'd completed. The bookkeeper entered the invoice number to be offset and QuickBooks put that credit in the prior year because I believe that QB defaulted to the original invoice date when the original invoice number was used to enter the credit. A year went by and I arrived to start the next year's review work. I pulled my hair out to find why the opening retained earnings in the company's general ledger no longer tied to the ending retained earnings in my workpapers for the prior year. Bookkeeper and I have resolved this, but once in a while something like this occurs in QuickBooks where a date might be input wrong when entering. If another preparer had picked up this job and printed reports from the company's system, it would have definitely looked like I issued the report and tax return using incorrect figures. I love the flexibility that QuickBooks allows, and in the right hands it can be a wonderful tool. Used incorrectly, or by someone inexperienced or not paying attention, it can create a lot of headaches.

I'm going to start with 2005, the last year the corp was prepared professionally, and compute AAA over again. Last year for his personal return, I had to recompute NOLS, passive losses, AMT NOLs, credit carryforwards, capital loss carryforwards, and the same for CA. It was a mess and made my brain explode on more than one occasion. Comparatively, this is much simpler, and his QB is pretty damned clean. As in - the one adjustment I made was removing penalties & interest from the state tax payments, and have him reclassify an amount in 'opening balance equity' as APIC (we had a discussion as to APIC vs. more shareholder loans). That is a blessing; last year I went over and over the QB until I was satisfied I could rely on the numbers. I just hope he still has basis for taking losses.

Catherine's idea is about what I'd do too. I hate the plugs, but nothing else you can do short of amending. Hopefully, the errors don't include this person deducting losses that shouldn't have been allowed due to basis limitations. At least the balance sheet isn't required. If I had this, once I had all the returns and trial balances for the prior years, I'd go back and prepare a basis worksheet for each year too.

Agree TOTALLY Jack!

4.5 hours working with 4 computers. Without specifics, several of the issues look like they have been corrected. Some are not as nice as I would like to see, but better. Tag me as a little "less" skeptical and a little more hopeful. My testing is FAR from over. Stay tuned...

There have been times when I have felt that way about broccoli myself!