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Hey, Friday, I was terrible to a client. He's a computer programmer who just doesn't have time to pay his bills or do taxes, apparently. When he picked up 2012 in December, I let him out of here without paying, been doing his return for years, not worried. Well, when he dropped off 2013, I reminded him he hadn't paid for 2012. Then, when he picked up 2013 he said, "Hey, that's a better refund than I thought," and was about to leave without paying. I said, "Yeah, it's awesome, but you haven't paid for 2012 or 2013, and I'm not in business to make friends, so pay up." He laughed till he was crying. Whew, I was glad, cause I just opened my mouth and that rolled out. No filter whatsoever.

Well, his mother just picked up his tax info and she stated that he just wants to show the 1099 to the lawyer. It appears he may be returning. I informed her that depending on when he comes back he may need to file an extension. Im sure that lit a fire under her butt. Needless to say I didnt charge anything and was nice as could be. I should have taken up acting.

A new client called me about her tax return, she wanted to know when she should send out my payment, if it was okay to send the payment when her refund comes in, I told her I expect to get paid when you receive the goods and not when the refunds comes in, I also mention to her that I really hate calling people to remind them that they owe for services and not only that I think it's embarrassing too, she agreed and said she feels embarrassed when they call her too.

Yes, I've had that happen, and if you were typing a 'space' at that moment, you get a blank field. Once I recognized that, I'd always hit 'restore' before moving out of the field, and the name would reappear.

If the tax program pops up while you are on a different screen, any keystroke you do will be entered in the very first field which happens to be the first name. ATX has a propensity for popping up when you least expect it. I have had this issue often for the last few years. While I am waiting for ATX to process something, I work on another program. Then the 1040 pops up and I am suddenly typing in the tax return instead of the program I am working on. It is more prevalent since I use two monitors.

I feel lucky! One of the few times I'm glad a client cancels is when they call and say they are turning back toward home because husband became ill on the way and actually had to stop at a gas station to throw up. The wife made a second great decision when she agreed to let me mail them the returns.

yes you are lucky indeed. You could have gotten alot more than just tax information. I would count my blessings too. Had a client not too long ago that was coughing and sneezing all over the place. Thank God for Lysol and it worked.

I did this very thing for a new client this year. I am now hoping that I don't regret my decision. I have never done it in the past but tried to give this tax payer a break. This is what happens when your heart gets in the way of business.

Oh, good, all her questions will be answered if the lawyer sees it.

If this is the case, the daughter's SS# was accepted on the parent's return as a dependent, then someone filed a return for the daughter not claiming herself. Otherwise, the error would have said that someone already claimed this SS# as a dependent. I am betting that the daughter or one of her "helpful" friends already filed it. if it were identity theft, the crook would have claimed dependency for the daughter and the parent's return would have rejected.

Or her friends were all using TurboTax and putting garbage in & getting garbage out.

Now I understand why DD appears on line 12 of the W2.

this talk it titillating, its good to see everyone is keeping abreast of the a,b,c,d,& dd's of taxes

HAVE it in your office, they can be a snap or a pia audit, depends on the auditor. In either case you don't want the auditor overhearing your client at work and you want to be in your office so you can work on something else. We practically have a UI or Work Comp auditor in our office daily, we leave the records in the conference room and let them do their thing. The agents have an area so if in your office you will get to know your local auditor. our local guy even asked if we could stock some splenda since he doesn't like sweet n low, that's how often they are here. They switch areas every 2-3 years because the supervisors don't want them that comfortable anywhere. They will look at payroll and general ledger and 1099's. In the ledger they will look for payments to individuals and question you on them. Recently they are also questioning 1099's saying they should be employees. On the state website there is info on what makes this distinction, mostly its control, who controls the work of the Independents, schedules it etc. As stated above the periods don't always match the pr tax quarters but most agents will fudge this, ie as stated above the period was 2/20 to 2/20, some agents will use march to march. The audit can be 15 minutes to 2 hours tops. If they pick up on some people that they want to make employees and you don't agree, having it in your office gives you a stall to talk with your client. Also, you don't have to agree, and you can have an unagreed to audit. then a supervisor gets involved. But remember its only a few points on the first $8500 someone earns so all the adjustments might be too small to fight over.

I always require payment before the returns are filed. Ive offered credit cards for three years now and no one has ever used it.

One reason I take credit cards! I have one longtime client I let pay when the refund comes in. They live across the street, and have never needed reminding. Her kids I won't do anymore, and I told her they didn't pay last year. She was furious!

I sent a complaint in last year when the same day I read that article I posted I received a client's W2 that had a HRB coupon attached. Bet you can guess the response I got....

Your original quote was "I don't see where anyone is being harmed by this, even though it may not be permissible." which is what I was replying to. I would agree that they don't care whether I am being harmed, but if they have a regulation on this, they should either enforce it across the board or drop it so everyone can swim in the same pool.

Oh yes, I had one last year that showed up beet red in the face and with a high fever. I didn't let him through the door. Shoved the returns in an envelope and told him to call if he didn't understand anything. Lysol on the door knobs and the chair he started to touch and in the air.

I have them leave me a check, which I hold until they get refund. I do that a lot, actually.

funny in that my clients get sick after meeting with me, not before

If all of you don't pay me $2, then I'll have an even bigger loss.

if all of you don't pay me $1 then I will have a big loss this year, Yah, no taxes to pay.

An incredible discovery that was recently made in Russia threatens to shatter conventional theories about the history of the planet. On Mount Shoria in southern Siberia, researchers have found an absolutely massive wall of granite stones. Some of these gigantic granite stones are estimated to weigh more than 3,000 tons, and as you will see below, many of them were cut “with flat surfaces, right angles, and sharp corners”. Nothing of this magnitude has ever been discovered before. The largest stone found at the megalithic ruins at Baalbek, Lebanon is less than 1,500 tons. So how in the world did someone cut 3,000 ton granite stones with extreme precision, transport them up the side of a mountain and stack them 40 meters high? According to the commonly accepted version of history, it would be impossible for ancient humans with very limited technology to accomplish such a thing. Could it be possible that there is much more to the history of this planet than we are being taught? For years, historians and archaeologists have absolutely marveled at the incredibly huge stones found at Baalbek. But some of these stones in Russia are reportedly more than twice the size. Needless to say, a lot of people are getting very excited about this discovery. The following comes from a Mysterious Universe article… Alternate history buffs are about to be whipped into a frenzy! OK, maybe not, but they will find this interesting. An ancient “super-megalithic” site has been found in the Siberian Mountains. Found recently in Gornaya Shoria (Mount Shoria) in southern Siberia, this site consists of huge blocks of stone, which appear to be granite, with flat surfaces, right angles, and sharp corners. The blocks appear to be stacked, almost in the manner of cyclopean masonry, and well…they’re enormous! Russia is no stranger to ancient megalithic sites, like Arkaimor Russia’s Stonehenge, and the Manpupuner formation, just to name two, but the site at Shoria is unique in that, if it’s man-made, the blocks used are undoubtedly the largest ever worked by human hands. When I say that this is a new discovery, I am not kidding. In fact, the very first expedition to study these stones happened just a few months ago. Prior to this expedition, there were no known photographs of these megalithic stones. Archaeologist John Jensen is mystified by these ancient ruins, and the following is an excerpt from a post on his personal blog… The super megaliths were found and photographed for the first time by Georgy Sidorov on a recent expedition to the Southern Siberian mountains. The following images are from Valery Uvarov’s Russian website. There are no measurements given, but from the scale depicted by the human figures, these megaliths are much larger (as much as 2 to 3 times larger) than the largest known megaliths in the world. (Example: The Pregnant Woman Stone of Baalbek, Lebanon weighs in at approximately 1,260 ton). Some of these megaliths could easily weigh upwards of 3,000 to 4,000 tons. The super megaliths were found and photographed for the first time by Georgy Sidorov on a recent expedition to the Southern Siberian mountains. The following images are from Valery Uvarov’s Russian website. There are no measurements given, but from the scale depicted by the human figures, these megaliths are much larger (as much as 2 to 3 times larger) than the largest known megaliths in the world. (Example: The Pregnant Woman Stone of Baalbek, Lebanon weighs in at approximately 1,260 ton). Some of these megaliths could easily weigh upwards of 3,000 to 4,000 tons. Another very unusual thing about these stones is that they caused the compasses of the researchers to start behaving very strangely. Here is a link to the full article, which includes lots of pictures as well. http://www.dcclothesline.com/2014/03/11/newly-found-megalithic-ruins-russia-contain-largest-blocks-stone-ever-discovered/ These stones are likely to remain an unsolved mystery for a very long time. But what is abundantly clear is that according to the commonly accepted version of history they should not be there.

Rita, that is exactly what happened and what I did. When I reduced the basis, he had a significant gain but at cg rates. This was a better outcome than the full amount at ordinary rates. Still, he's in shock at the tax due. He isn't insolvent but has to draw out retirement money and, at 64, hasn't a lot of time left to regenerate. Like me, he will be working past 'normal' retirement age. I definitely should be making more money but am sometimes a softy on folks like this. It's hard to kick him when he's down. I did have to put in lots of extra effort even outside the learning curve. He has MN and NC state returns, too, plus OIH for 6 months before he quit that job plus temporary expenses while training. Whew! I want him to just settle down for a while.

I had ONE return where the problem was that I had something not coded correctly. I called Drake support and they walked me through figuring out what had happened, fixed it, and helped me figure what to do should I come across something similar in future. Call support! -- One of the (many) GREAT things about Drake.

Why not transmit them and if they are rejected, then paper file? Sounds like a lot of overthinking this one.....

now we know where one named people like Madonna got their names, stolen from your tax returns.

I had a few that beats the dd. I also had one client in the "entertainment field" and found out she could write this stuff off. How did she know?

I hope this thread does not become pointless.

If cookie crumbs fall down your shirt, are they booby trapped?

I am having trouble keeping abreast of this thread....

You are all utterly ridiculous....

After their father passed away, these two brothers formed a bond stronger than ever. When the oldest one returned home from duty overseas, their reunion proved just how strong a brother’s bond can be.

I was almost 100% positive that I was correct about this but just wanted to be sure I wasn't missing anything. It is so nice to be able to run things past this group. It's been said many times before, but I appreciate each one of you and your willingness to share your knowledge and thoughts during what is such a busy time for all of us. Thanks again! Gina

If mammary serves, people think there is a tax credit for everything they want to deduct. Seriously though, I hate this type of thing, it's so hard to prove a negative.

Since their own rules say it is not allowed, the IRS should care.

I can see where this thread is headed - now it's going to get milked for all it's worth.

New client comes in. Has a Form 1065 for a Real Estate Investment. Sends me the spreadsheet with expenses and revenue. Revenue is $600 for renting the land for hunting.... There is one old barn on the property, not used for anything. Client drives once a month to their cabin that is another 50 miles up the road from this property. So, he has listed, every month, travel to the Form 1065 Real Estate to "check on it and Work on it." That is 250 mile round trip, plus tolls and meals... $3k in expenses BTW, he's an engineer. Add him to the list. Rich