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Clients who are looking for last year's AGI (or depreciation schedules for that matter) have already decided to go elsewhere. I would have no qualms about giving them what they want and saying goodbye. Why make it hard when the relationship seems to be broken? They want to use a preparer who is closer to where they live, who their friend uses, whose price is perceived to be lower, or who will let them deduct the suits they buy for work that you would never allow them to write off. Sometime they come back with their tail between their legs. Sometimes when they try to come back you gleefully tell them you're not accepting new clients. Most often you never hear from them again. I would never do anything to force them to stay. What's the point?

If she continues day trading for very long, it's likely that she won't be able to afford your fees no matter what they are.

And don't forget the biggest benefit, that our clients will be coming back to us because we have the info they need to e-file. A client asking for last year's AGI will be a huge tip off that they are looking to go elsewhere. You can get a few extra bucks from them for a prior year return reprint. Tom Hollister, CA

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I think I'm going to write a book someday. The title will be "How to Make A Small Fortune Day Trading" Chapter 1: Start With A Large Fortune Chapter 2: Begin Day Trading Chapter 3: Stop When You Have A Small Fortune Chapters 4, 5, and 6 : Go Back to Chapter 3 !!! Chapter 7: Self-Explanatory

I think the easiest way to eliminate 99% of tax-refund identity theft is to require taxpayers to input last year's AGI when they efile. That's the way efile started, remember? The IRS eventually eliminated that requirement because at that time, they were under pressure to increase efiling and were trying to make it as easy as possible for taxpayers. By now efiling has caught on and the IRS is ahead of its mandated goals. So let's take a step backward and ask filers to report last year's AGI. The identity thieves won't have that info and will be stopped in their tracks.