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Catherine, You and I have spoken several times about my son's desire to attend MIT. Attached is the recommendation letter he recieved from his intership at NASA this past summer. Yes, I am bragging, isn't that what parents are supposed to do. Ignore the date, he corrected it to 2013 on a later e-mail. Tom Recommendation Patrick Carlson.pdf

Because of a few posters this forum has become very unprofessional!!

Sure, send it along. It can't hurt. Patrick is currently waiting for his interview to be scheduled. He is on pins and needles because the interviewer has not gotten back to him yet. Still keeping our fingers crossed. Step one, get him accepted. Step two, find the money. Not sure which one will be harder to accomplish. Thanks for the kind words.

THANKS for the advice but I guess you don't know my situation, I think most here do. The returns I prepare are for my side practice which I never merged into my firm, mostly individuals and small businesses. I am a partner in a mid size firm 3 partners, 8 professional staff, 3 admins and at anytime 3-4 interns. It is their work that I review. I never merged in my clients because the firm clients need net worth of at least 10mil. The firm specialty is 65% involved in real estate the rest are jewelry. Its not unusual for these returns to have 50-75 k-1's in them, one return for example has 75 single member llc's and is 14 states. These are not basic returns and as Tax Partner I have to sign off on them. our total return count including entities is around 1800 and the last couple of years with the increased exemption we are doing about a 100 gift returns a year. I used atx and now proseries for my side clients because I like formed based, and until 2010 we used prosystem for the firm but after paying $30,000 for the software we switched to Lacerte.

Yes. it's important to include in each fee not only the complexity of the return, but also the timing. And always charge extra for being late, without any embarrassment over that. Your time, even your peace of mind and the stress of being given the data too near a deadline should go into your fee.

I looked into awhile back, just so I could answer the bazillion questions I'm getting. Could not find how to apply. Gave up.

years ago I had a long time client that worked on my floor. About $200 fee since I was the cpa for the office he subletted from. well one year he came in on 4/10 and I told him no; to backed up and too many others ahead of him. Sch A, B, C, D and E. He wouldn't do an extension either. The next year he came back around February even brought his adult sons info. he had the prior year done by hrblock for over $400. I charged him $325 that following year. He was happy knowing I was still cheaper than hrb and convenient to him. I got a nice increase in fees and a compliant client. sometimes you just have to stand your ground. Just yesterday someone dropped off her stuff, I told her it was 1/3 higher this time of year and she agreed, apologized and prepaid before she left my office. Next year she will be timely or I will earn a great fee for 20 minutes of work.

That's about where I am, michaelmars. Everything I tested worked. Some was more cumbersome than it needed to be, and I wonder why they spent time and money in the effort of making fancier bells and whistles while there were so many systemic problems last year. What we were given to test did NOT address many of the areas where we all had SO many problems last year. Nor do we even have an indication that we can get through to tech support by phone, without going through customer no-service first (like last year) -- and that's before we even peek at the wait time issue. I will stick with Drake for 2013 taxes. I really prefer ATX -- but I can't trust them this year, and as a one-person shop with NO room in my practice for another software disaster like last year, I just don't see that I can afford the risk. Perhaps if I had seasonal help I could rely upon to take up some of the accounting slack and client interface work -- but my seasonal help is document handling only (scanning paperwork as it comes in and printing/collating/stapling finished returns). Another year like this past one is NOT worth enduring.