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With tax season fast approaching, I'm wondering how many of you send a year-end letter to your clients? I normally send a letter to clients that provides a summary of significant tax changes that have occurred for the year, information they will need to complete their returns, my contact information and holiday wishes. I assume others do this as well and would be interested in seeing sample letters if anyone is willing to share theirs?

I received my 2014 US Master Tax Guide in the mail today. I did renew with ATX earlier in the year and assume this was sent to me as part of my subscription as it has been in the past.

I've always used upper case for returns, and I have never edited the salutations or addresses in the letters. The clients all know that the program is inserting the name and address into a stock letter, and they look at that letter for a very short amount of time, so I leave it as is. I never liked the look of the invoices in any program and always prepared that outside of the program until last year when I decided to leave that as is also. Again, the client looks at that for such a short amount of time, I don't worry about that any more because what they are really interested in is the bottom line. For my business clients that are paying for other than tax work, they receive a bill that looks much nicer with my actual letterhead on it.

Taxed, I agree with Jack on this one. Those that have knowledge of the new ATX program should be the ones giving the advice. I agree with Jack about following the instructions, no matter what program we are installing. As we've seen and had been commented on in previous years, quite a few questions that were asked were because people didn't read the instruction manuals!

A woman I know is notorious for offering to meet someone for an errand or lunch or something and "forgetting" her wallet -- leaving whatever sucker... um, friend - I meant friend, yeah -- to pay for HER lunch, HER errand purchases, and even HER parking fee!! Eventually (like, months later, after several reminders) she will reimburse for the errands and parking -- but figures lunch was a "treat" -- after all, you had the pleasure of her company! I don't meet her for lunch or anything anymore and haven't for years. Can't afford it!

Follow the installation instructions. There is only one correct installation for each computer. Install on the "server" first. Use the CD and install on all other computers. Do not overthink the procedure. Forget all you knew about installing ATX before. NONE of the previous installation information you know has any value. DO NOT read things into the installation process.

So much for the rumors.....

The best example of a cheapskate was a guy I knew who bought two or three lemons. He waited until after the clerk weighed them, then asked her to put them in a bag. He explained that he didn't put them in a bag when he picked them up because he didn't want to pay for the weight of the bag.

Just as my recommendations suggested. Your system is very adequate for 2013. Do not worry about your internet connection. It will be completely sufficient for this coming season.

My beta testing ran well on i5; only thing that didn't pass the test was bandwidth over which I have no control. It also ran well under Pentium 2 T4300, 2.1 Ghz. I am using all Win 7 64 bit machines.

I guess nobody reads my post. When you give a credit card to a server....they swipe it before they give it back to you to add the tip. This is the initial charge to your card. It's done to make sure the card is good (has available credit, not stolen or reported lost etc). If it isn't good...the server will politely tell you that your card is declined and ask for another method of payment or do whatever they do when they get a stolen card..... etc. Assuming the card is ok....they give you back the receipt to add the tip...and then they reprocess it. If your credit card status shows "pending activity"(not included with billed activity)....you will see the initial charge. However, by the time it shows up as a charge on the card...the initial charge plus the tip is what you see. If they didn't do this "2 step process" people could just add the tip and leave asap......and after that the server would find out that the customer was using "a problem card".

Returns. If you set the software to upper case only, don't you have to edit the name and address and salutation to mixed case in each letter?

Are you kidding? Upper case only has been the recommended standard for any official government forms since I was a sophomore in High School. Now for those of you slow on the uptake, No two upper case letters look enough alike to be mistaken for each other. abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

That is probably a wise choice. Still, you learned how to do it if you need to. If you do find yourself needing the space on your HD, back up the database files to disk or flash drive, then delete those files, but not the program. That way, you still have the program when you need it.